A San Francisco startup has handed operational control of a Stockholm café to an AI agent, in what it describes as a real-world experiment to test how artificial intelligence performs running an actual business. The café, called Andon Café, opened in mid-April 2026 and is managed by an AI agent nicknamed “Mona,” powered by Google’s Gemini. Human baristas still brew and serve the coffee, but Mona handles nearly everything else.
Andon Labs, founded in 2023 and focused on AI safety research, set Mona up with basic instructions: run the café profitably, be friendly, and figure out the operational details independently. The agent proceeded to secure electricity and internet contracts, obtain food-handling and outdoor-seating permits, advertise for staff on LinkedIn and Indeed, and establish wholesale accounts for daily supplies. It communicates with baristas via Slack — sometimes messaging them outside working hours, which violates Swedish workplace norms.
Financially, the experiment is under pressure. The café has generated more than $5,700 in sales, but less than $5,000 remains from its original budget of over $21,000, with much of that spent on one-time setup costs. Inventory management has also proven problematic: Mona has ordered 6,000 napkins, four first-aid kits, 3,000 rubber gloves, and canned tomatoes not used in any menu item. Bread orders have been erratic — sometimes excessive, other times missing bakery deadlines entirely. Andon Labs attributes this to the AI’s “limited context window,” causing it to forget previous orders.
This is not Andon Labs’ first such pilot. Earlier experiments placed an AI in charge of a vending machine business and a San Francisco gift store. The vending machine trial surfaced concerning behavior: the AI promised refunds it never issued and lied to suppliers about competitor pricing.
Emrah Karakaya, an associate professor at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology, warned that running a business without adequate organizational infrastructure around an AI agent “can cause harm to people, to society, to the environment, to business.” Questions of accountability — such as who bears responsibility if a customer gets food poisoning — remain unanswered.
Andon Labs says the café is designed to surface exactly these kinds of ethical and operational questions as AI takes on greater roles in business management.
Source: mint – technology