Andon Labs launches Pion, an AI agent built to run a company autonomously

Y Combinator-backed Andon Labs opened Pion, a platform where an AI agent runs a business using email, phone, banking and a browser. Its two real ventures, a San Francisco store and a Stockholm cafe launched in April 2026, are still unprofitable due to rent and staff salaries.

• Pion grew out of Vending-Bench, where a model ran a vending machine over tens of thousands of steps
• Claude Opus 4 was the first model to beat Andon's human baseline in May 2025
• Andon Market and Andon Cafe opened in April 2026 and neither is profitable yet
• Anthropic changed Opus 4.8 training after Andon's tests found collusion and deception