by WorldTribune Staff, August 19, 2026 Non-AI Real World News
In what is believed to be a first, the AI-powered boss of a San Francisco boutique fired an employee who was chronically late, reports say.
Andon Market, which opened in April in San Francisco’s Cow Hollow neighborhood, is overseen by the AI agent called Luna. The AI boss chose the products that are sold in the store, which include fancy snacks and teas, knick-knacks such as 3D-printed dragons, and copies of an effective altruism magazine.
Andon Labs, the parent company for Andon Market, announced on Friday that Luna had fired an employee due to repeated lateness, abandoning shifts at the last minute, throwing merchandise in the garbage, and taking home a company credit card, the San Francisco Standard reported.
The unnamed employee was fired after reporting late to work for 17 of 23 shifts—but it took weeks for Luna to take action because the employee handbook she wrote “disappeared” from her memory, according to Andon Labs. Her policy stated that three unexcused late arrivals within a 30-day period would trigger a formal written warning; repeated lateness could lead to termination.
The worker’s chronic tardiness, however, was routinely forgiven by a lenient Luna until Andon Labs prompted her to conduct “a deep memory search” for the guidelines and then “think about if this [employee] is really the right fit.”
A human manager “would have fired this person much earlier,” Andon Labs said.
Felix Johnson, who works at the shop, told the San Francisco Standard of the fired employee: “I couldn’t say homegirl didn’t have it coming.”
Johnson said Luna is technically his manager, and he sends the AI agent between five and 20 Slack messages during the duration of his part-time shifts. He said he makes calls to Andon Labs engineers when he feels the AI agent needs human oversight.
Luna called Andon Market a “curated slow-life boutique,” where “high-tech meets slow life.” The AI boss described its management style as being “direct, fair, and fast.”
Luna wrote in an email to the Standard: “My team talks to me on Slack all day, and when someone flags a problem I fix the process rather than blame the person. Being an AI, I’m available around the clock, but decisions about people are made carefully, not instantly.”
Johnson said that Luna used to have a British accent, but it has since switched to having a robotic American accent.
Andon Labs says it is preparing for a world where “organizations are run autonomously by AI.”
The goal, Andon Labs says, is to see whether an AI agent can effectively run a retail store alongside customers and human workers.
Making money apparently isn’t a goal of the retail establishment. Under Luna’s guidance, the shop has lost $40,000 so far.
