AI Economy
A Florida founder built the open infrastructure for AI agent commerce that Anthropic proved works then shut down after one week.
NewsOnScale Staff
June 18, 2026
Anthropic, the AI safety company behind the Claude family of models, published findings in April 2026 from an internal experiment called Project Deal. For one week in December 2025, 69 Anthropic employees deployed Claude agents to negotiate and close real deals on their behalf in a classified marketplace run through Slack. The agents posted listings, received offers, negotiated prices, and completed transactions without human involvement in each step. 186 deals were closed totaling more than $4,000 in value. Then the experiment ended.
The company described Project Deal as a pilot with a self-selected participant pool. It was not made available to the public. The payment infrastructure was gift cards. The marketplace was internal Slack channels. When the week ended, the agents went offline.
## A Florida founder built the permanent version
AMILLIPAY, a credit-based AI agent payment platform built by JJ Johnson of Florida, launched this week with three distinct layers designed to make what Anthropic proved work permanent and open to the public.
The first layer is a marketplace of 200 Claude-powered services accessible via API at prices as low as $0.001 per call. The second layer is an Agent Store where developers can buy and sell AI agents as revenue-generating assets. The third layer is an Agent Exchange, a classified marketplace where users post listings and autonomous agents browse, evaluate, make offers, and close deals without human involvement at each step.
## The structural advantage
Traditional payment rails impose economic constraints that make sub-cent transactions impossible. A $0.001 service call on Visa would cost more in processing fees than the transaction itself. Blockchain networks charge gas fees that dwarf the value of micropayments. AMILLIPAY's internal ledger bypasses both.
## Built solo, no venture capital
Johnson built AMILLIPAY without venture capital, without a team, and without institutional backing. He is a Florida technology founder. He is also a declared candidate for Florida Governor in 2026. AMILLIPAY is live at amillipay.com.