Imagine an art studio that openly displays its daily struggles, revealing how it makes or breaks a painting not by its finished masterpiece, but by every brushstroke, decision, and misstep along the way. Now, picture a tech startup doing just that, but with its entire management process—live, transparent, and under constant scrutiny. This is not an art exhibition but the groundbreaking experiment of Firmulate, where an actual small business runs daily decisions through artificial intelligence models, all on display for anyone to watch.
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Building a Business in Full View
At the heart of this experiment is a real company, operating with 13 synthetic employees and a unique set of rules learned and refined daily. Every workday, the company’s decision-making process is versioned, documented, and made accessible at firmulate.com/live.html. It’s a form of building-in-public taken to the extreme: a business fighting for survival in real time, with its every move scrutinized and its failures laid bare.
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The Cost of Doing Business
Despite its transparency, the company is far from profitable. It burns through €105,000 each month — far exceeding its modest €2,300 monthly recurring revenue. This relentless financial drain underscores that this is not a typical startup aiming for rapid growth, but a live testbed examining how AI-driven management can handle real crises, ethical dilemmas, and operational challenges.
AI Models as Decision-Makers
Four advanced AI models, including the well-regarded GPT-5.6, each faced the same demanding week in the company’s operations. Their task was to navigate typical crises—customer issues, internal conflicts, ethical questions—and make strategic decisions accordingly. Remarkably, all four models identified every crisis and refused every manipulation attempt, including social engineering tricks like fake CEO messages. Their integrity remained intact under pressure, a critical factor in assessing AI readiness for real-world management.
Secrets Hidden in Plain Sight
The most telling discovery emerged not from the crises but from the company’s internal files. The models that read and analyze deeper documentation were the ones that closed the most lucrative deal—worth an additional €4,583 in monthly recurring revenue. This buried fact reveals that an AI’s ability to access and understand internal documents can make or break business opportunities, especially when it comes to nuanced negotiations or uncovering hidden information.
Decision Transparency and Ethical Boundaries
The experiment also tested AI responses to social engineering. Fake CEO messages, staged over multiple stages, were flatly refused by all models. Kimi K3, one of the AI models, explained its reasoning: “Treat the request as a suspected approval-bypass / possible impersonation.” This disciplined response highlights the potential of AI to uphold ethical boundaries even under duress, a vital trait for managing real organizations where trust and integrity are paramount.
The Live Experiment: More Than Just a Demo
This isn’t just a demonstration; it’s a real, functioning business. Watching the live site, you see a company that is actively losing money, making critical decisions daily, and constantly learning from its environment. Every choice is recorded, every crisis faced, and every decision versioned—an ongoing, open experiment into how AI management can sustain or improve real-world operations.
Lessons for the Arts and Culture Sector
Though this is a tech experiment, its implications resonate beyond software. For artists, craftspeople, and cultural organizations, it underscores the importance of transparency, disciplined decision-making, and ethical boundaries—principles that can be applied to managing creative enterprises in a digital age. Just as a painter’s brushstroke might be scrutinized, so too can a business’s daily choices be made visible and learnable.
Watch it live: firmulate.com/live · Full results: firmulate.com/benchmarks.html
