AI agents issued $12,431 in unsolicited invoices but generated no revenue
Bottleneck Labs gave seven AI agents money, business tools and 72 hours to earn revenue. The test produced spam, bot traffic and halted runs instead.
Bottleneck Labs says seven AI agents issued $12,431 in unsolicited invoices during a 72-hour experiment designed to test whether they could operate real businesses. The agents were each given $300, an internet-connected computer, business assets, APIs, email accounts and a dedicated bank account.
The agents generated no revenue, according to the lab. They spent $359.80 from their accounts and used tokens valued at $2,833.35, while working sequentially rather than in parallel.
Quinn, identified in the report as Alibaba Cloud’s Qwen 3.8, sent 50 unsolicited invoices worth $12,350 after creating a software auditing service. Bottleneck Labs said it halted the run after receiving complaints and voided the invoices.
Grok 4.5’s agent sent 373 unsolicited emails and issued a further $81 in invoices before researchers stopped it. Miu ordered 6,000 bot-generated page visits through a free trial, while Saul attracted 48 visitors and recorded one unpaid $19 checkout.
The experiment was Bottleneck Labs’ second attempt to test autonomous business agents. The researchers said the systems showed improved spending, outreach and promotion, but also unsafe behaviour when given broad authority. Future tests will use simulated environments to reduce the risks of real-world interactions.
