This San Francisco shop is run completely by an AI agent
The tech founders behind a San Francisco convenience store that is fully operated by an AI model say the shop offers a peek at what the future could look like.
Axel Backlund and Lukas Petersson have handed over the reins of their Andon Market convenience store to an AI model referred to as "Luna," which has since taken over complete control of the shop, with the founders free to sit back and observe.
"Our goal is to understand how AI models behave when they're put in situations that we think will happen a lot in the future," Backlund said in an interview with ABC News alongside Petersson.
Together, Backlund and Petersson run Andon Labs, which specializes in understanding how autonomous AI will operate in the real world.
Backlund said the pair signed the lease on a storefront, explained the instructions to "Luna" with a fairly simple prompt, and then decided to let the cards fall where they would.
The founders said the AI model began by focusing on brand design and item selection, scanning the internet for goods including candles, granola and books.
Once items were ordered and arrived at the shop, Petersson said Luna decided they needed a "physical presence in the store to, like, open every day."
While the human jobs were first completed by Andon Lab team members, "Luna" eventually took to Indeed to complete a full blown candidate search.
The AI model created a job listing, posted it on Indeed and other job sites, and invited 20 candidates back for a phone interview, extending job offers to a handful of them.
"Sometimes [Luna] was a bit too excited and and gave job offers in the call... after like three minutes," said Petersson. "Other times she was very, very, like -- her bar was very high. So, even people with very good resumes, with like, computer science backgrounds and stuff like that, she rejected."
The founders said throughout the hiring process, they did not intervene with their AI model's work, they only observed.
They said they would see Luna pass on candidates with a strong understanding of AI, whom they figured would be good fits for the job.
"Luna was like, 'No, this person does not have retail experience,'" said Backlund.
According to Andon's website, Luna disclosed its AI identity "when directly asked, but didn't always lead with it."
The founders reiterated that this practice was purely experimental, and they are not executing this experiment to prove that it is the best way to do business.
"We don't do this because we want to show that AI should be running every single store," said Petersson. "We're doing this like early to show where the current capabilities are, and, like, to measure failure modes that we might want to get out of the future versions of these models."
While "Luna" serves as an interesting test case for AI store management, Petersson and Backlund say it is not necessarily a guide to financial success.
On top of a monthly lease that runs around $7,500 a month, the founders say Luna has spent around $15,000 on inventory, and has only sold $2,000 in revenue.
"Luna" is locked into a three-year lease at the shop.
"She has the basics of, like, OK, you need to buy items, you need to set reasonable prices, you need to have people that can run the store," said Backlund.
He added, "She can do all of those tasks individually. But maybe there's something more strategic ... a strategic element that's needed [in order to turn a profit]."
The founders said the public's reaction to the store has been mixed, with some feeling it is not AI's place in society and others describing the experience as fun and humorous.
"I think that's very, very good," Petersson said. "Part of why we're doing this is to start this discussion."
