What Happened When Researchers Co-Founded a Startup with AI

What if your startup’s first hire wasn’t a person—but an AI agent? This provocative question was at the heart of a semester-long collaboration between Microsoft and NYU Stern’s Tech MBA program. Thirty students, divided into six startup-style teams, were given access to Microsoft 365 Copilot with the latest agent capabilities and asked to reimagine how work gets done when AI is embedded from day one. Their mission: break traditional workflows, build “Frontier Firm” companies, and explore the future of human-agent collaboration.