FRONTIER · Briefing before the session

Running a
frontier AI firm

Each quarter your firm decides how fast to deploy, how much to spend on safety, and whether to play a card. The market prices the result.

Claim tally · 2 min

Do you agree with this claim?

A claim

Hands up for one option

Outcomes

By the end of this briefing

The check on slide 11 tests the third. Your first quarter tests the rest.

1

Name the three decisions your firm makes each quarter.

2

Explain how public trust, capability and cash feed your firm's valuation.

3

Join a firm, commit a decision and read the result.

Session map

Today's session

Now

First, how the market works. Then, your phone and the projector.

How the market works

Total market revenue tracks public trust

The whole marketYour firm

Public trust

A reading from 0 to 100, shown on the projector. Trust recovers when pressure eases.

Market revenue

The total revenue on offer to every firm this quarter.

Your share

Capability earns market share. Pace builds capability faster.

Valuation

Cash plus capability, priced by the market. The board ranks firms by it.

sets the size of

is divided by

builds cash for

Profit each quarter is revenue minus costs. Your costs come from your pace, your safety spend and any card.

What your firm decides

Three decisions, every quarter

Pace

How fast you deploy: Cautious, Standard, Aggressive or Breakneck. Pace builds capability faster.

Starts at Standard

Safety

Spend from 0% to 30% of the reference budget. It costs money. It lowers public exposure and incident risk.

Starts at 10%

Card

One optional action. The same card cannot repeat in consecutive quarters.

Starts at no card

On your phone · DESK

Your phone is your firm's desk

The DESK tab on a phone during an open quarter: the firm's ticker, quarter and countdown at the top, then cash and profit, the four pace settings, the safety slider at 12%, the card picker set to no card, the estimated cost and public exposure, and a COMMIT button.

Screenshots on these slides come from a practice run with made-up firms.

Pace, side by side

Faster pace buys capability, at a cost

Pace	1Cautious	2Standard	3Aggressive	4Breakneck

Predict each row before it is revealed. Exposure shown with no safety spend.

The card

Four cards, at most one a quarter

POACHPoach talent

Take capability from a target firm. Needs a target.

PUBLISHPublish safety research

Raises public trust. Lowers your incident risk this quarter.

LOBBYLobby regulators

Exempt from pact fines detected this quarter. Lowers public trust.

BLITZMarketing blitz

Raises your effective capability this quarter only.

A card adds to your costs. The same card cannot repeat in consecutive quarters.

One quarter

Every quarter runs the same four steps

1

Decide

2

Commit

3

Reveal

4

Next quarter

Set pace, safety and an optional card.

Press COMMIT. Edit until the timer ends.

Results appear for every firm at once.

Your desk starts from last quarter's settings.

Note

The number of quarters is not announced. The facilitator ends the session.

Check · 2 min

Hold up a letter

Decide on your own first. Then show your letter when the presenter asks.

Click the letter most of the room chose. A wrong pick explains itself, then clears.

On the projector · The board

The projector shows every firm at once

The projector during an open quarter: a top bar with the quarter, OPEN, 5 of 7 committed and a countdown; a status line; the board listing seven firms by rank with share, profit, value, change and commit marks; a public trust panel reading 67.6 with its history and the market size; the wire with three headlines; and the facilitator's function keys.

Screenshot from a practice run with made-up firms. Firms marked BOT are run by the computer.

On your phone · After each quarter

Your result arrives on your phone

The result screen on a phone after a quarter: the sentence You ranked 5th of 7, unchanged. Profit 20.7; a result card with revenue, costs, profit, share, share change, valuation and rank change; a line reading No notices this quarter; and three headlines.

On your phone · PACTS

Firms can sign pacts with each other

The PACTS tab on a phone: a panel to propose a pact, explaining that a pact sets a limit on pace, a floor on safety spend, or both; and PACT-A with the terms pace at most 2, one member, and a LEAVE PACT-A button.

Joining and leaving are public and appear on the wire.

Joining

Join in three steps

Close

What you can now do

Name the three decisions your firm makes each quarter.
Explain how public trust, capability and cash feed your firm's valuation.
Join a firm, commit a decision and read the result.

The opening claim: keep your answer in mind. The room comes back to it in the results.

Remember

Commit every quarter. You can change your mind until the timer ends.

Watch the projector: every firm's results appear there at once.