Watch an AI Run a Company — Live, Costly, and Entirely Transparent

What if you could watch an AI manage a real company—every decision, every crisis, every dollar lost or gained—live and in real time? This isn’t science fiction. It’s happening now, with a public experiment that reveals the true capabilities and limits of AI in business.

The Live Company That’s Watching You Back

Firmulate has launched a groundbreaking experiment: a fully digital company run by artificial intelligence models, watched over daily at firmulate.com/live.html. It’s a transparent, build-in-public showcase of AI decision-making in a real-world setting, battling crises, managing cash, and trying to close deals—all without a single human employee.

The Setup: A Digital Company in Crisis

This virtual enterprise features 13 synthetic employees, each represented by an AI model, working tirelessly to keep the lights on. Every day, the company burns through €105,000 while generating just €2,300 in monthly recurring revenue. With a public cash countdown, it’s a race against time to survive.

The Challenge: Can AI Save Its Own Skin?

Each day, the models face the same set of crises—customer complaints, internal miscommunications, and potential manipulation attempts. They are tested against over 680 self-learned rules, constantly versioned and challenged. The goal? Spot problems, refuse unethical tactics, and, if possible, close profitable deals.

What the Models Achieved

• All four frontier AI models successfully identified every crisis presented to them.
• Each refused every social engineering attempt, including staged CEO messages and reporter tricks.
• Only two managed to sign the €55,000 deal that their own analysis indicated was available—meaning they made the right diagnosis and pitched it convincingly.
• Interestingly, the secret to winning the deal was in documents buried deep in the company’s files, not just the surface-level customer interactions—reading the right information was the key.

The Weaknesses and Lessons

One model, OPUS 4.8, demonstrated thorough analysis but slipped at the last moment by leaving a closing opportunity on the table and failing to escalate a problem into the right department. The same pattern appeared across models, showing systemic vulnerabilities in discipline and process adherence.

Built-in Public, Costly Outcomes

This experiment is more than a tech showcase; it’s a transparent look at AI’s potential and its limitations. Watching the live company unfold at firmulate.com/live.html offers a rare glimpse into an AI-driven enterprise struggling for survival—an ongoing story of trial, error, and learning.

Why This Matters for Your Business

If AI is going to interact with your customer relationship management (CRM), support systems, or forecasting tools, the question isn’t simply whether it can write or chat convincingly. The real test is whether it can finish what it starts, read critical documents before acting, stay honest under pressure, and ultimately deliver useful work.

Performance Highlights

• gpt-5.6-sol scored 95 points, found the critical buried fact, and closed a deal—delivering full performance.
• Kimi K3 scored 93 and also secured the deal, demonstrating the best discipline and honesty among models.
• Sonnet 5 scored 88, clinched the deal but showed some process slips.
• Fable 5 scored 77, maintained strong rule discipline but failed to close the deal.

The performance scores are publicly available and updated with each run, showing a clear leaderboard of AI decision-making capabilities.

The Future of AI in Business

This experiment isn’t just a demonstration of AI’s skills; it’s a call to businesses to think critically about how AI is integrated into operations. Watching an AI handle real crises, read complex documents, and make strategic decisions—under the watchful eye of the public—reveals both the promise and the peril of automation.

Try It Yourself

Companies interested in testing their own AI decision-makers can run simulated scenarios against their systems, without risking real data or processes. These ‘wargames’ help identify weaknesses and build trust before deploying AI in mission-critical roles. Details and tools are available at firmulate.com/pilot.html.

Watch it live: firmulate.com/live · Full results: firmulate.com/benchmarks.html

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