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A tech startup called Skyfall AI is set to do the most tech startup thing imaginable: toy with an unwitting group of employees’ careers by turning their company into a giant AI experiment.
First, the plan is to buy a small tech business, like an e-commerce or B2B SaaS company, for as much as $1 million. Then the shotcallers at Skyfall will appoint an AI as the CEO, put it in charge of running the entire operation, and dust off their hands while wishing the employees they just subjugated to an AI model all the best.
Skyfall’s human CEO and cofounder Sam Pasupalak frames this as key to realizing the company’s mission to “democratize the power of a CEO to all the small businesses around the world.”
“If you want a truly autonomous business, you have to buy a business and operate the whole thing end to end,” Pasupalak told Forbes in an interview. “Unless you run a business with minimal human intervention, you’ll never know whether an autonomous enterprise is actually possible.”
Unlike many AI firms that’re focused on building AI agents that perform specific workers’ tasks, including sales and coding, Skyfall wants to set itself apart by pursuing a virtual CEO that can help with the big picture decision-making needed to run a company.
The AI model will have plenty of responsibilities, like overseeing pricing, marketing, customer support, finance, and operations, according to Forbes. The goal? Gradually reduce human involvement, all while doubling the company’s revenue.
That’s an ambitious goal. But the SkyFall guys are confident that their AI is ready for the real world after an unusual test: it excelled at the video game RollerCoaster Tycoon, a management sim where you oversee an amusement park. Good enough, right?
“That gave us confidence that we could operate inside a simulated business. The next step is buying a real company,” Pasupalak said.
They’re not prepared to let an AI completely run loose, though, stressing that even when AI hypothetically takes over a lot of a company’s operations, humans should still provide accountability.
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