Skyfall AI said on 9 November that it has bought three small digital businesses and is running them on Steve, a system of AI agents it calls an AI CEO, in a press release. The figures Skyfall shared with The Next Web are mixed: a social media API tool went from $3,649 to $8,307 in monthly revenue, while a Shopify referral app fell about 3%, to $8,379.
By our arithmetic, the two businesses together went from $12,283 a month at takeover to $16,686, a rise of about 35.8%. The third business joined too recently to report, according to Skyfall. The figures are the company’s own and have not been independently checked.
Business Pill · AI Agents Explained
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on AI agents. It teaches the general idea only and does not describe Skyfall or Steve.
The key insight: Skyfall’s figures show one AI-run app rising from $3,649 to $8,307 a month and another about 3% below its takeover level; by our arithmetic the pair is up about 35.8% combined, on company-reported numbers.
Skyfall describes Steve as an “autonomous business harness that can run digital businesses such as SaaS products and Shopify apps”. The release says it is made of a team of specialist AI agents, a code world model that simulates the effect of possible actions, and a policy engine.
The release says: “A human owner still sets the direction and makes business-critical decisions.” Every action falls into one of four levels: run automatically, run and notify, request approval, or block.
The release gives a refund example. An owner could let Steve issue refunds of up to $30 automatically, while larger refunds wait for approval.
Monthly revenue at takeover and in the latest month for the two businesses Skyfall reported. Data: Skyfall AI figures, as reported by The Next Web (9 November 2026); company-reported, not independently verified. The combined row and +35.8% are our arithmetic.
The Results So Far
Skyfall took over the social media API tool in July. Its monthly revenue stood at $3,649 then and reached $8,307 by October, an increase of 127.7%, The Next Web reported. The release puts it as revenue that “has grown by 2.3x over the last quarter”.
Skyfall credits small changes. Steve started answering questions at signup, after which Skyfall puts signup-to-paid conversion at 14%. It stopped promoting one-off credit packs, which the company says added about four new subscriptions a week, and offered discounts to stay only to newer users.
The Shopify referral app had been losing revenue for five years when Skyfall bought it in August at $8,634 a month. It now brings in $8,379. Skyfall calls that stabilisation. Steve rewrote the app’s store listing and switched off ads that brought clicks without purchases, saving more than $1,000, according to Skyfall.
How the System Changes Itself
Skyfall says Steve can rewrite its own code, skills and agent setup. Its example is a deadlock: a growth agent and an engineering agent kept handing a website deployment back to each other, and one lacked the access to deploy. Steve changed its own harness so a coordinating agent now resolves such conflicts.
The release says the owner’s rules still apply to those self-made changes. Skyfall also announced a $2 million Startup Program to acquire five more early-stage startups to run on Steve.
Update (9 Nov): the founder’s thread. Skyfall’s co-founder posted the launch on X, and a summary by Rohan Paul followed.
Introducing Steve: the World’s first AI CEO for fully Autonomous companies.
Powered by World Models, Recursive Self Learning, a Policy Engine and a team of specialist AI agents, it runs your business end-to-end 🔥.
Proof? Steve currently runs 3 businesses we acquired and they are all crushing it (numbers in thread 🧵)
We’re now launching the Steve Startups Program of $2M to acquire 5 additional startups for Steve to automate.
Join us in the Autonomous Enterprise revolution 🚀.
Skyfall AI co-founder Sam Pasupalak introduced Steve and the $2M Steve Startups Program on X at 16:28 UTC on 9 November, with the business results in a thread below the post.
Another cool launch showing how the most interesting agent engineering right now is happening in the harness around the model.
Skyfall AI bought 3 online businesses and put Steve, a team of AI agents, in charge of support, marketing and code changes, while a human owner approves only the big calls.
Steve records what it learns in every review cycle and carries it forward, and Skyfall says lessons from its first acquired business shaped the playbook for the second.
The 1st, a social media app, grew MRR 2.3x in under 3 months, and the 2nd, a Shopify app, has stabilized after Steve rewrote its listing and cut ads that drove clicks without purchases. Both run on a code world model, one executable program per business, where moves get rehearsed before they go live.
Rohan Paul, who posts about AI on X, summarised the launch at 18:19 UTC. The framing is his view; the figures in it are Skyfall’s.
The program. In the fifth post of his thread, Pasupalak wrote: “Our Startups Program will acquire 5 more businesses, for up to $2M in total capital, and place them under Steve’s full autonomous algorithms.” Skyfall’s application page says it is “selecting five businesses to run on Steve, with up to $2 million in total for investment or acquisition.”
The businesses. The thread’s first post names the first business AlphaSocial, “A social media app that we took over in August 2026,” whose “MRR grew by 2.3x in just under 3 months.” Skyfall’s technical blog describes AlphaSocial as “a social media data API,” which fits The Next Web’s “social media API tool,” so we have kept that label. The thread and the blog date the takeover to August; The Next Web reported July. The other two are GammaPromo, “A Shopify app for merchant referral programs,” and DeltaLeads, “A lead-generation tool in online communities,” which Steve took over in late October, according to the thread. The blog says all three publish live dashboards. Neither the thread, the blog nor the release says what Skyfall paid for them.
Checking 2.3x. By our arithmetic, $3,649 to $8,307 is 2.28 times the takeover level, which rounds to the 2.3x Skyfall gives.
Owner approval. Skyfall’s blog says: “Currently production releases, spending above the agreed limits and other gated actions require the owner’s approval.” Rohan Paul’s post puts it as a human owner who “approves only the big calls.”
The code world model. Pasupalak’s thread says Steve “keeps an executable model of your business.” The release calls it “an executable model written in code, built from business records and business inputs,” which Steve uses “to simulate possible actions, estimate their effects and plan work toward the business goals.” These are Skyfall’s own descriptions.
As we read it, the experiment tests the harness as much as the agents: the four approval levels and the $30 refund limit decide what Steve may do without a person.
Skyfall AI press release, 9 November 2026
“A human owner still sets the direction and makes business-critical decisions.”
Three Implications
FOR SMALL SOFTWARE OWNERS Skyfall says its $2 million Startup Program will acquire five early-stage startups to run on Steve.
FOR AGENT BUILDERS Skyfall says Steve rewrites its own code, skills and agent setup, inside rules set by the owner.
FOR READERS OF THE RESULTS The revenue figures cover two businesses over about two to three months, and they are company-reported.
The framework argues: “The surface, not the model, governs autonomy.”
As we read it, Skyfall’s policy engine is that surface: it sets which of Steve’s actions run alone and which wait for the owner. The framework predates Steve and does not discuss Skyfall.
What Is Not Established
Skyfall does not name the three businesses or say what it paid for them. The Next Web reports that the company has not said whether anyone worked at them. The results cover about two to three months and two businesses, and they are company-reported. Skyfall says each business will get a public dashboard under an anonymous name.
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Skyfall’s first figures for its AI-run businesses show one app more than doubling its monthly revenue and another still about 3% below its takeover level. By our arithmetic the pair is up about 35.8% combined, on company-reported numbers, with a human owner approving the decisions that matter most.
A note on sourcing. How Steve works and the $2 million program come from Skyfall AI’s press release of 9 November. The revenue figures are Skyfall’s own, shared with and reported by The Next Web; we could not check them independently. The combined figures are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
