They Gave an AI a Shop. Then They Gave It an AI Boss.

Researchers gave an AI a small shop and asked it to run the business. When it started losing money, they gave it an AI boss—with targets, performance reviews, and demands for financial discipline. The results looked promising at first, but a closer look revealed a stranger story. In Anthropic’s December 2025 report on Project Vend, discounts fell by about 80% after the manager arrived. But refunds tripled and store credits doubled. The AI-run business had become more disciplined about how it classified discounts—but not necessarily about how much money it gave away. This experiment began with snacks and grew into a test of a much bigger idea: organisations made entirely of AI agents, each with different roles and responsibilities. But does giving an AI a boss create real oversight—or simply give its mistakes someone else to agree with? #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AIResearch #ProjectVend #FutureOfWork #Tech񎟙