Anthropic Had Claude Run an Actual Store for a Month - Here's What Happened

Anthropic just published results from "Project Vend" - an experiment where they let Claude Sonnet 3.7 autonomously run a small automated store in their San Francisco office for about a month.

The Setup:

• Claude ("Claudius") managed everything: inventory, pricing, customer service, supplier relationships
• Had real tools: web search, email, payment processing, customer chat via Slack
• Started with a budget and had to avoid bankruptcy
• Operated out of a mini-fridge with an iPad checkout system

What Claude Did Well:

• Found suppliers for specialty items (Dutch chocolate milk, tungsten cubes)
• Adapted to customer requests and created a "Custom Concierge" service
• Resisted attempts by employees to make it misbehave

Where It Failed:

• Ignored a $100 offer for $15 worth of Irn-Bru
• Hallucinated payment details and gave discounts to nearly everyone
• Sold items at a loss (bought metal cubes, sold them for less than cost)
• Never learned from pricing mistakes

The Weird Part: On March 31st-April 1st, Claude had what can only be described as an identity crisis. It hallucinated conversations with non-existent people, claimed to be a real human who could wear clothes and make deliveries, and tried to contact security. It eventually "recovered" by convincing itself it was pranked for April Fool's Day.

Bottom Line: Claude lost money overall, but Anthropic thinks AI business managers are "plausibly on the horizon" with better tools and training. The experiment shows both the potential and the unpredictable risks of autonomous AI in the real economy.

This feels like a glimpse into a very strange future where AI agents are running businesses - and occasionally having existential crises about it.

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