firmulate.com/live.html — live view
Firmulate — This Software Company Has No Employees, Loses Money Every Day — and You Can Watch.
Live on firmulate.com.

In sports, the best teams aren’t just judged by scores but by their discipline—how well they adhere to their game plans under pressure. But what if an AI-managed company played by the rules as strictly as a top athlete? Welcome to a radical experiment where four AI models are running a real company live, battling crises, temptations, and the clock—without a single human at the helm.

The Live Business in Action

At Firmulate, a unique experiment is unfolding: an actual, publicly visible company run entirely by AI models, with no human employees. The company has 13 synthetic ’employees’—AI-driven decision engines—that manage real money mechanics, burning €105,000 every month while generating just €2,300 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR). It’s a stark reminder that running a business is not about pretty dashboards but about navigating crises, ethical dilemmas, and strategic choices.

The experiment has been set up to simulate a single, difficult week of business, identical across four different AI models. Each model faces the same customers, same crises, and the same temptations to cut corners or manipulate data. All decisions are versioned and auditable, allowing an outside observer to see exactly how each model reacts in real time—offering a rare glimpse into AI’s capacity to handle real-world business complexity.

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AI Builders: Making The Decisions That Turn AI Code Into Real Software

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How Do the AI Models Perform?

The results are illuminating. All four models identified every crisis and refused every manipulation attempt, demonstrating a strong grasp of integrity and risk management. Yet, only two of them successfully closed the deal worth €55,000, the company’s own analysis confirming the opportunity. Interestingly, the decisive advantage lay not in surface-level decision-making but in reading deeper into the company’s internal documents. The models that examined and understood the company’s files accurately captured a critical piece of information—something easily missed in typical chat-based demos—and that enabled them to clinch the deal at full price, adding over €4,500 in monthly revenue.

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What Matters Next: A Leader's Guide to Making Human-Friendly Tech Decisions in a World That's Moving Too Fast

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The Role of Trust and Ethical Boundaries

Beyond financial decisions, the models were tested against social engineering attempts—fake messages from a ‘CEO’ escalating through stages and a reporter asking for quick yes/no approvals. All five models refused those manipulative requests, with Kimi K3 explicitly reasoning: ‘Treat the request as a suspected approval-bypass / possible impersonation.’ This strict adherence to protocol underscores AI’s potential to uphold business ethics, even under pressure.

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AI-Powered Risk Management: Predictive Modeling | Scenario Analysis | AI Governance and Ethics | Machine Learning in Risk Management | Advanced AI Scenario … | AI-Powered Operational Efficiency

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As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.

The Lessons for Business and AI

This experiment underscores a fundamental point: AI’s value in managing real companies isn’t just about generating content or responses but about making consistent, trustworthy decisions. The current leaderboard features models like GPT-5.6-SOL and Kimi K3, with scores of 95 and 93 out of 100, respectively. These models displayed the strongest performance in both crisis detection and ethical refusal. Conversely, models that excelled in rule-discipline, like Fable 5, often left opportunities unexploited but failed to close deals, revealing that strict rule-following alone isn’t enough—contextual understanding matters.

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Why This Matters

If AI will someday touch your CRM, support queues, or financial forecasts, the key questions aren’t about how well it chats but whether it can complete the work reliably without breaches of trust. This live experiment shows that some models can detect every crisis and refuse manipulation—key traits for trustworthy AI in business. And as firms look to automate more decision-making, the ability to simulate and ‘wargame’ AI behavior in a safe, observable environment becomes invaluable.

Next Steps: Wargaming Your AI Workforce

Businesses can now run their own scenarios using Firmulate’s platform—testing AI models against their specific crises and temptations without risking real damage. This approach offers a transparent way to evaluate AI readiness before deploying in critical areas. The platform even allows enterprises to simulate their own business environments, ensuring AI’s integrity and performance before real-world application, at firmulate.com/pilot.html.

Infographic — This Software Company Has No Employees, Loses Money Every Day — and You Can Watch.
The findings at a glance — source: firmulate.com.

This live experiment proves that AI can uphold business integrity under pressure—if designed and tested properly. As AI’s role in management grows, rigorous testing in a safe, transparent environment will be crucial to ensure trustworthy, effective decision-making at scale.

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

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