Run a company autonomously
Observed in the wild: andon Labs assembled Pion to run its real businesses: vending machines, a retail store in SF, a cafe in Stockholm and radio stations. Persistent agents get email, phone, banking, browser and secure computing environments. Early agents made costly mistakes, and by late 2025 frontier models ran a vending machine profitably.
- Agent or tool
- Custom agent
- Topic
- Email & Inbox
- Reported on
- Hacker News
- Added
- 2026-10-15
Why it matters
Email is where a lot of admin quietly piles up. An agent that can read, sort, draft and follow up turns an inbox from a to-do list into something closer to a summary. It is one of 106 sightings filed under Email & Inbox on Agent Sightings (number 38 by interest), and one of 182 involving Custom agent.
How you could try it
Here is a reusable prompt, written by us in our own words, that captures the task. Paste it into your own agent or any similar agent and adjust the details to your situation.
Go through my mail for this goal: run a company autonomously. Propose labels, drafts, and unsubscribes as a checklist; change nothing until I approve.
Tip: Start with read-only access or 'draft, don't send', and check a few drafts before trusting it to send anything.
Source
Read the original first-hand account on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49700477. Our summary is a paraphrase; details are in the source.
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Related sightings
- Schedule meetings by email and update the calendar
- Send a 7am daily brief from email, calendar and Todoist
- Check supplier invoices for duplicates and missing GST
- Cancel and refund subscriptions by searching email and calling
- Rebook a work flight to save money
- Get a billing dispute refunded by a support agent