Imagine a company with no human employees, no management team, yet constantly fighting for survival — all while being openly observed and tested by the public. Welcome to the world of Firmulate, a real-time experiment in AI-driven business management that exposes the raw, unfiltered challenges of deploying artificial intelligence in high-stakes environments.
The Live Experiment: A Business in Perpetual Crisis
At the heart of this project is a small, synthetic company powered entirely by AI models. It operates with 13 simulated employees, each guided by over 680 self-learned rules and continuously versioned decision-making processes. Despite this sophisticated setup, the company burns through €105,000 every month — yet it only earns €2,300 in monthly recurring revenue. Its public cash countdown adds a layer of urgency and transparency rarely seen in the tech industry.
Accessible at firmulate.com/live.html, this ongoing experiment showcases AI models navigating a simulated week filled with crises, temptations, and decision points. The models are tested against the same set of challenges, including customer issues, strategic dilemmas, and social engineering attempts that mimic real-world manipulation tactics.
The Models and Their Performance
The experiment pits four frontier AI models against each other in a competitive league, with scores out of 100 reflecting their problem-solving prowess:
- gpt-5.6-sol: 95 — identified crucial hidden facts, closed the deal, and demonstrated comprehensive performance.
- Kimi K3: 93 — the newest entrant, maintained the best discipline, and also secured the deal.
- Sonnet 5: 88 — closed the deal but showed some process slips.
- Fable 5: 77 — exhibited the most rule discipline but failed to execute the final deal.
Interestingly, the decisive weakness lay not in the models’ crisis response but in their ability to read deeper company files—two document references deep—that contained critical information. The models that examined these internal files won the €55,000 deal at full value (+€4,583 MRR), illustrating the importance of thorough documentation analysis.
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Challenges and Limitations
Despite their impressive crisis detection and refusal of manipulative social engineering attempts, only half of the models actually signed the deal their analysis suggested was possible. The other two, despite correct diagnosis, failed to act decisively, showing a gap between understanding and execution.
The experiment also revealed discipline differences; for example, Opus 4.8, the most thorough participant, left the close on the table by not escalating certain issues properly. Even when equipped with many learned rules, the model’s execution slipped under pressure, highlighting a critical challenge in AI decision-making: consistency under real-world stress.
Why This Matters for Business and AI
This ongoing experiment is more than a tech demo. It questions fundamental assumptions about AI’s role in management: does an AI business partner just look competent, or can it reliably complete complex, high-stakes tasks? The findings suggest that success isn’t just about diagnosing problems but about disciplined execution and deep understanding—areas where current AI models still stumble.
For enterprise decision-makers, the key takeaway is clear: deploying AI isn’t just about chat quality or surface-level intelligence. It’s about whether AI can finish what it starts, read critical documents, remain honest under pressure, and ultimately, produce useful work at a sustainable cost. The experiment’s public, transparent nature invites viewers to watch these models in action, revealing both their potential and their limitations.
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Watch It Live and Learn
If you’re curious about how AI models handle real business crises, you can observe this unique experiment in real time at firmulate.com/live.html. The site rebuilds itself twice daily, keeping the story dynamic and up-to-date. You can also engage with the full results and analysis at firmulate.com/quotes.html.
The Bigger Picture
As AI continues to integrate into organizational workflows—whether in CRM, support, or forecasting—understanding its capabilities and limitations becomes vital. This experiment underscores a crucial point: AI’s value lies not just in generating convincing conversations but in executing complex, goal-oriented tasks without losing discipline or integrity.
Watch it live: firmulate.com/live · Full results: firmulate.com/benchmarks.html
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