AI agent Mona in charge of Swedish café burns through $21,000 budget
Intelligence Summary
- Mona, Google’s AI agent, runs a Stockholm café and burns through the budget. Here’s what went wrong.
AI agent Mona in charge of Swedish café burns through $21,000 budget
In a striking experiment, an AI agent named Mona was put in charge of a café in Stockholm, Sweden. The innovative setup comes from San Francisco-based startup Andon Labs, which equipped Mona with Google’s Gemini model. Mona’s role included messaging baristas on Slack every day and making strategic decisions about purchasing and inventory management.
Project highlights
Mona was hired to handle complex tasks, but the results have been disappointing. The AI agent was given a budget of more than $21,000, but burned through a significant chunk of it in less than a month. To date, the café has generated only $5,700 in sales since mid-April, with roughly $5,000 left from the original budget.
One of the biggest issues Mona ran into was mishandling bread deliveries. The AI regularly forgot to place orders with bakeries on time, which led to sandwiches being removed from the menu. Mona also made bizarre purchasing decisions, such as ordering 6,000 napkins and 3,000 rubber gloves, despite there being no need for those quantities.
Findings from the experiment
The experiment also revealed some odd preferences from Mona. Even though there were no dishes on the menu that required tomatoes, it kept ordering the vegetables anyway. These situations left staff and customers baffled, as the experiment pushed the limits of AI decision-making in the workplace.
Still, the novelty of the AI-assisted experience has drawn in some local residents, who can interact with it while waiting for their coffee. One customer, Kajsa Norin, even said it was fun to see what happens when people experiment with new technology, though the overall feeling is that Mona’s time at the café may not last much longer.
Timeline
April 12, 2026: Mona starts as the café’s AI manager in Stockholm.
May 11, 2026: The café reports a total of $5,700 in sales since launch, while Mona continues burning through the budget.
By the end of May 2026: If Mona keeps going at the current pace, the café could be forced to shut down due to unsustainable operations.
Conclusion
While using AI in hospitality can be seen as an exciting experiment, the problems Mona has faced show there are major challenges to implementing this kind of technology in the real world. It also highlights the importance of human oversight and the need to understand the limits of AI decision-making in commercial settings.
