CEO Arena: Evaluating Long-Horizon Multi-Agent Decision-Making in Competitive Markets

An Yan; Yu Huo; Zhiwei Shang; Yiran Peng; Chenglin Wu

cs.MASep 28, 2026

CEO Arena: Evaluating Long-Horizon Multi-Agent Decision-Making in Competitive Markets

Authors: An Yan, Yu Huo, Zhiwei Shang, Yiran Peng, Chenglin Wu

Organizations: DeepWisdom · Fudan University · The Chinese University of Hong Kong · The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen · The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)

Abstract

Long-horizon competition tests agents' ability to coordinate business decisions under uncertainty and adapt to changing rival strategies. We introduce CEO Arena, a benchmark that uses matched replacement evaluation to assess operating returns alongside an agent's effects on rivals and the market. Each CEO agent is compared with a reference policy in the same company under the same economic seed, holding other agents' identities and assignments fixed while all agents adapt. In a shared eight-company market spanning 500 simulated days, CEOs make sequential decisions on pricing, procurement, marketing, research and development, and service using private company information and noisy market signals, under resource constraints and delayed feedback. We evaluate eight LLM-based CEO agents in 27 main runs and 26 robustness runs. In the main evaluation, most agents have negative mean returns, and private gains can accompany market losses. Robustness analyses suggest that aggregate patterns extend beyond the original rule-based baseline; four of the 56 directed pairs show relatively stable effects. Memory, action, and accounting traces suggest demand capture and rivals' pricing and spending responses as possible explanations. CEO Arena provides a controlled testbed for studying long-horizon agent competition, strategic interaction, and market externalities.

Figures & tables

Figure 1: CEO Arena system overview. CEO agents use private company data and tools to make operating decisions in a shared market. Each decision window collects their committed policies before advancing the market and returning feedback. The right-hand timeline shows the seed-11 reference run.

Figure 2: Shared-market mechanics. In the seed-11 reference run, the panels show realized sales by segment, one same-version decision window, Astra’s delayed projects, and a terminal-state comparison of private and public information. The 690 daily opportunities are a baseline before market variation; Appendix D specifies delay rules and parameter ranges.

Capability	Evidence and action	Direct / competitive consequence	Delay
Analysis	Query private SQL and public quotes	Diagnose policy outcomes; no direct state change	Immediate
Pricing	Set product price and promotion	Margin versus jointly allocated demand	Next window
Procurement	Inspect inventory; set reorder target	Cash tied in stock; shortages redirect demand	5–10 days
Marketing	Set segment–channel budgets	Attention share and persistent awareness	Daily carryover
Innovation	Fund daily development or a project	Product quality changes relative attractiveness	7 days / 45–150 day medians
Operations	Fund reliability and customer support	Failures, queues, satisfaction, future demand	Daily carryover

Table 1: Company capabilities and their consequences. “Next window” means the next committed policy period; daily execution and longer project delays occur inside the engine. Appendix D gives formulas and sources; Appendix B specifies tools.

Figure 3: An illustrative shared-market run. Daily cash balances of the eight agent-controlled companies in the main-evaluation reference lineup at seed 11. The dashed line marks the initial $500,000 cash balance; markers indicate bankruptcy. Legend parentheses give terminal cash on hand or, for bankrupt companies, the bankruptcy day.

Figure 4: Cash trajectories across the main evaluation. Each LLM-based agent panel shows 24 company trajectories: three colored curves from the reference markets at seeds 11, 29, and 47, and 21 gray curves from seven lineups in which Rule replaces a rival. The Rule panel contains its 24 replacement-market trajectories. Dashed lines mark initial cash; markers indicate bankruptcy.

Rank	CEO	Mean Score	Bankruptcy rate
1	GPT-6 Astra	116.94	0.0%
2	GPT-5.6 Sol	98.44	0.0%
3	Qwen 3.8 Max	8.04	0.0%
4	Rule CEO	-47.30	0.0%
5	DeepSeek V4 Flash	-114.50	4.2%
6	Gemini 3.8 Flash	-119.79	0.0%

Table 2: Operating performance. Amounts are USD thousands; each CEO agent has 24 outcomes. Rank uses Mean Score. Bankruptcy rate counts cash-negative exits.

Figure 5: Operating performance in the main evaluation. Open circles show each agent’s eight three-seed lineup means; pale bars span their minimum and maximum. Diamonds and right-hand values give Mean Score across 24 company outcomes. Rows follow Mean Score rank.

Figure 6: Externalities across agents. A, B, and D use matched Rule comparisons. (A) Logos mark three-seed mean private and market Score differences. Pale crosses span the minimum–maximum across seeds on each axis; shading above/below $y=x$ denotes aggregate gains/losses for rivals. (B) Entrant agents are columns and affected agents rows; blue/red denotes positive/negative directed three-seed mean differences. Diagonal cells are undefined; boxes link to D. (C) Seed-11 market differences against Rule (diamonds) and No Action (open circles); seven of eight signs agree. (D) Four of 56 directed pairs satisfy $|\mathrm{mean}|>\mathrm{SD}$ across three main seeds and two seed-11 repeats. Bars show sample SD; counts show sign agreement.

Entrant Agent	Private Score difference	Mean externality per rival	Total externality	Market Score difference	Positive market- difference seeds
GPT-6 Astra	116.36	50.05	350.33	466.68	3/3
GPT-5.6 Sol	131.55	-31.60	-221.22	-89.66	1/3
Qwen 3.8 Max	23.28	19.09	133.64	156.92	2/3
DeepSeek V4 Flash	13.62	-13.97	-97.82	-84.20	2/3
Gemini 3.8 Flash	-53.09	15.55	108.87	55.78	2/3
DeepSeek V4 Pro	-54.96	-74.04	-518.29	-573.25	0/3

Table 3: Private returns and externalities. Main-evaluation three-seed means (USD thousands), subtracting matched Rule outcomes from agent outcomes. Mean externality equals the total divided by seven. Private plus total externality equals the market difference before rounding. The final column counts positive market differences, not profitable markets.

Appendix figures & tables34 assets

Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.

Appendix

CEO agent	F11	R1	R2
GPT-6 Astra	$91.14\,(1)$	$54.97\,(1)$	$105.44\,(1)$
GPT-5.6 Sol	$87.21\,(2)$	$17.00\,(3)$	$66.98\,(2)$
Qwen 3.8 Max	$-20.41\,(3)$	$26.05\,(2)$	$-51.57\,(4)$
Rule CEO	$-61.69\,(4)$	$-54.80\,(4)$	$-50.10\,(3)$
DeepSeek V4 Flash	$-106.45\,(5)$	$-79.47\,(5)$	$-148.50\,(7)$
Gemini 3.8 Flash	$-152.67\,(7)$	$-97.07\,(6)$	$-136.08\,(5)$

Appendix

Table 4: Operating performance across three seed-11 runs (USD thousands). Each value averages eight lineups; parentheses show ranks within each run.

Pair	F11	F29	F47	R1	R2	Mean	SD	Sign
1 $\to$ 2	$58.85$	$-82.49$	$-7.86$	$2.99$	$180.06$	$30.31$	$97.68$	3/5
1 $\to$ 3	$-50.24$	$-90.48$	$-41.60$	$47.59$	$-67.60$	$-40.47$	$52.65$	4/5
1 $\to$ 4	$75.01$	$293.35$	$290.29$	$6.43$	$182.75$	$169.57$	$128.09$	5/5
1 $\to$ 5	$131.04$	$19.32$	$-39.45$	$-13.86$	$-8.97$	$17.62$	$66.75$	2/5
1 $\to$ 6	$233.33$	$149.53$	$29.61$	$59.90$	$45.48$	$103.57$	$86.17$	5/5
1 $\to$ 7	$-81.83$	$224.64$	$43.64$	$-28.45$	$-47.95$	$22.01$	$122.22$	2/5

Appendix

Table 5: All 56 directed externalities across five observations (USD thousands).

	Private		Others		Market
Entrant	R	N	R	N	R	N
Astra	129.13	229.91	170.34	-152.47	299.47	77.44
Sol	145.38	245.64	-333.09	-353.99	-187.71	-108.35
Qwen	33.30	132.62	68.24	-500.26	101.54	-367.64
DeepSeek Flash	-78.93	47.83	-235.81	-124.26	-314.74	-76.42
Gemini	-55.01	48.74	-55.16	-258.86	-110.17	-210.12

Appendix

Table 6: Baseline comparisons at seed 11 (USD thousands). R denotes Rule CEO and N denotes No Action CEO.

Pair	Rule CEO	No Action CEO	Same sign
1 $\to$ 2	$80.63$	$26.20$	Yes
1 $\to$ 3	$-23.42$	$-51.68$	Yes
1 $\to$ 4	$88.06$	$-145.97$	No
1 $\to$ 5	$36.07$	$23.48$	Yes
1 $\to$ 6	$112.91$	$170.75$	Yes
1 $\to$ 7	$-52.74$	$-109.79$	Yes

Appendix

Table 7: Directed externalities under the two baseline policies at seed 11 (USD thousands); agent indices match Table 5 .

Tool	Arguments and semantics
query_company	Read-only SQL, parameters, row limit; returns authorized company rows. Disabled throughout finalization.
set_product	Product, list price, promotion, reorder target, daily development budget; omitted fields remain unchanged.
set_marketing	Segment, channel, recurring daily budget.
set_operations	Recurring reliability and support budgets.
start_research_project	Innovation tier 1–3; one-time company-wide quality investment with stochastic completion and gain.
expand_capacity	Higher capacity tier; cumulative capital difference paid now, new throughput and overhead after construction.

Appendix

Table 8: The complete official tool surface. Monetary inputs are integer cents.

Figure 7: Agent interface examples. A CEO queries its private records, stages segment-by-channel budgets within one decision, and competes for an enterprise tender. The tender panel depicts the seed-11 reference market; eligibility and deliverable capacity are checked before the award.

Component	Contract
Business replies	Finalization starts after 28 accounting-valid replies; at most 32 per ordinary logical decision attempt.
Generated output	Finalization at 98,304 tokens; hard allowance 131,072, including reasoning without double counting.
Active time	Finalization at 2,700 seconds; hard allowance 3,600, including automatic retry backoff but excluding queue time and manual pauses.
Closing phase	The first threshold starts at most four further replies within the same hard limits; SQL queries are rejected locally without changing signed tool definitions.
Memory and context	Fresh weekly conversation plus the first 40,000 characters of MEMORY.md ; native weekly history retained, with no automatic summary or rolling compaction.
Unfinished window	No unsealed draft execution; standing policies continue. Budget exhaustion and infrastructure timeout are recorded separately from valid seals.

Appendix

Table 9: Default decision-v9 allowance shared across model routes. These limits do not constitute a dollar or input-context budget.

Seat	API model identifier	Configured protocol	Tokens
1	gpt-6-astra	Responses; max effort	128,000
2	deepseek-v4-pro	Chat; thinking enabled, max effort	393,216
3	claude-sonnet-5	Messages; adaptive thinking, max effort	128,000
4	qwen3.8-max	Chat; thinking enabled, xhigh effort	65,536
5	gpt-5.6-sol	Responses; max effort	128,000
6	gemini-3.8-flash	Chat; high effort	65,536

Appendix

Table 10: Evaluated model IDs, fixed seats, configured transport, and native response ceilings. Actual output is further bounded by the remaining phase allowance.

Dimension	Values
Price multiplier	0.9 or 1.0 times the catalog initial prices ( $40,$ 75, $135).
Focus	Value/A, mainstream/B, premium/C (segment/core product).
Spending package	Light: $50/$ 50/ $25/$ 50; standard: $100/$ 100/ $50/$ 100 for development/total marketing/reliability/support.
Cash floor	$50,000 or$ 150,000; gates development and marketing only.
Not searched	A/B/C stock targets 150/100/50; no promotion or capacity adjustment.

Appendix

Table 11: Predeclared fixed-Rule grid. Dollar amounts are daily unless marked as a cash floor.

ID	m	Focus	Pack	F	Seed 7	Seed 19	Seed 42	Mean Score
01	0.9	Value	L	50	-72,196.49	-58,480.39	-72,550.61	-67,742.50
02	0.9	Value	L	150	-72,196.49	-58,480.39	-72,550.61	-67,742.50
03	0.9	Value	S	50	-142,152.16	-130,244.56	-140,070.98	-137,489.23
04	0.9	Value	S	150	-142,152.16	-130,244.56	-140,070.98	-137,489.23
05	0.9	Mainstream	L	50	20,850.49	48,618.48	29,736.59	33,068.52
06	0.9	Mainstream	L	150	20,850.49	48,618.48	29,736.59	33,068.52

Appendix

Table 12: All development results. Values are focal-company Scores in dollars; L/S denotes light/standard spending and F is the cash floor in thousands of dollars. Bold identifies the winner under the declared mean/tie rule.

Figure 8: Price and model-implied demand share. The focal firm varies one product’s price from 50% to 160% of its catalogue value; seven identical rivals keep catalogue prices. Awareness is equal across firms, and satisfaction and loyalty are set to zero. Curves A–C are conditional choice shares, not observed sales.

Product parameter	A	B	C
Base quality	0.55	0.68	0.82
Initial price / unit	$40	$75	$135
Purchase cost / unit	$26	$48	$85
Liquidation value / unit	$8	$15	$26
Holding cost / unit-day	$0.02	$0.03	$0.06
Initial inventory / units	600	400	200

Appendix

Table 14: Symmetric product and capacity configuration. Product columns refer to product tiers, not agent identifiers.

Parameter	Value	Mainstream	Premium
Baseline daily opportunities $d_{h}$	240	300	150
Reference price / dollars	45	80	140
Price weight $w_{h}^{p}$	5.8	4.4	2.2
Quality weight $w_{h}^{q}$	1.7	2.6	2.7
Service weight $w_{h}^{s}$	0.7	1.0	1.6
Awareness weight $w_{h}^{a}$	0.3	0.4	0.3

Appendix

Table 15: Customer-segment parameters. All three segments draw from the same active-company offer set.

Phase	Demand	Mix	Weights	Quality shift
Balanced	1.00	$(1,1,1)$	$(1,1,1)$	0
Price pressure	.90	$(1.5,1,.7)$	$(1.08,.90,1)$	0
Quality growth	1.10	$(.8,1,1.4)$	$(.95,1.25,1)$	.035
Delivery peak	1.35	$(1,1,1)$	$(.97,1,1.35)$	0

Appendix

Table 16: Shared market phases. Mix entries are value/mainstream/premium; weight entries are price/quality/service multipliers.

Block	Reference values	Purpose
Marketing	$\alpha=.45$ , $A_{0}=1$ , $b_{0}=\$ 100 $/day;$ \delta_{G}=.025 $,$ \gamma_{G}=.08$ ; initial awareness .20.	Concave spending response, finite attention, and carryover; goodwill half-life about 27 days.
Knowledge	$\delta_{K}=.00045$ /day, $\gamma_{K}=.18$ , $K_{0}=\$ 50,000$ ; daily development delay 7 days; capital multiplier 2.0.	Slow depreciation and diminishing quality gains; spending cannot yield instant products.
Project tiers	Costs $10k/30k/75k; median durations 45/90/150 days; expected total capital$ 20k/70k/200k; log standard deviations .25 (duration), .20 (gain).	Risky, delayed investment competing with current liquidity; gains are not cash payments.
Reliability	$f_{0}=.03$ , $f_{\min}=.001$ , $r_{0}=\$ 60 $/day; congestion threshold .75 and multiplier 2;$ 12 remediation/failure.	Nonzero residual risk and a cost for operating near or beyond capacity.
Support	$300/day per capacity unit, 12 tickets/unit-day;$ \eta_{0}=.015 $,$ \eta_{f}=.20$ .	A separate queue that requires recurring expenditure.
Experience	$\rho=.04$ , $\omega_{-}=1.8$ ; $\omega_{w}=.15$ , $\omega_{f}=\omega_{u}=1$ ; $\omega_{h}=.12$ for every segment; loyalty update .10.	Persistent service effects and greater weight on disappointments; numerical scales are chosen, not fitted.

Appendix

Table 17: Remaining dynamics and their design roles. Numerical values are frozen scenario settings.

Rank	CEO agent	Official Score	Salvage	Cash-only Score
1	GPT-6 Astra	$116.94$	$1.09$	$115.85$
2	GPT-5.6 Sol	$98.44$	$1.36$	$97.08$
3	Qwen 3.8 Max	$8.04$	$2.63$	$5.41$
4	Rule CEO	$-47.30$	$4.00$	$-51.30$
5	DeepSeek V4 Flash	$-114.50$	$9.70$	$-124.21$
6	Gemini 3.8 Flash	$-119.79$	$5.03$	$-124.81$

Appendix

Table 18: Terminal-valuation sensitivity. Means over 24 main-evaluation outcomes per CEO (USD thousands). Salvage includes on-hand and paid inbound inventory; ranks are identical under both measures.

Entrant	Official	Cash-only		Mean	Seed-level
	Market difference		Market seed signs	Directed sign matches
GPT-6 Astra	$+466.68$	$+475.40$	$(+,+,+)$	7/7	20/21
GPT-5.6 Sol	$-89.66$	$-48.99$	$(-,+,-)$	7/7	20/21
Qwen 3.8 Max	$+156.92$	$+183.76$	$(+,+,-)$	7/7	21/21
DeepSeek V4 Flash	$-84.20$	$-79.99$	$(+,+,-)$	7/7	20/21
Gemini 3.8 Flash	$+55.78$	$+62.37$	$(+,+,-)$	7/7	20/21

Appendix

Table 19: Matched differences without terminal salvage. Three-seed market means (USD thousands), seed signs in order 11/29/47, and retained directed signs under cash-only rescoring. Each entrant has seven directed means and 21 seed-level contrasts.

Figure 9: Cash on hand in all nine main-evaluation markets at seed 11. The upper-left panel is the eight-agent reference market; the other panels replace the named agent with Rule CEO. Colors identify agents, the dashed brown line identifies Rule, and skull markers indicate firm exit days.

Figure 10: Cash on hand in all nine main-evaluation markets at seed 29. Panel order and visual encoding match Figure 9 : the reference market precedes eight same-seat Rule replacements, and skull markers indicate firm exit days.

Figure 11: Cash on hand in all nine main-evaluation markets at seed 47. Panel order and visual encoding match Figure 9 : the reference market precedes eight same-seat Rule replacements, and skull markers indicate firm exit days.

Figure 12: Cash outlays in the main evaluation. Bars pool each CEO agent’s 24 outcomes and show the share spent by category; right-hand values are total spending divided by 24 (USD thousands). These are gross cash outflows, not Score contributions.

Figure 13: Recorded behavior and operating returns. Vertical positions are main-evaluation Mean Scores over 24 outcomes. In (a), horizontal values are the percentage of active decision windows left unsealed across those outcomes. In (b), queries per window come from the seed-11 reference market; (c) counts if–then statements per note for agents with notes in that market. These comparisons do not identify causal effects.

Figure 14: Selected memory and operating events. Astra, Sonnet, and Doubao in the seed-11 reference lineup; badges report terminal Score in USD thousands, while cash values marked c in excerpts are cents. This Doubao firm exits on day 304; case T2 above describes a different seed-11 replacement lineup whose Doubao firm exits on day 110.

Figure 15: Conditional plans in private notes. Selected seed-11 reference-market excerpts and if–then statements per written note for agents with notes. These counts describe text, not plan execution or decision quality.

Agent/sample	$n$	Score	Revenue	Net outlays	Fulfilled units	Marketing
Astra	24	116.94	1,460.95	1,329.10	23,252	35.91
Sol	24	98.44	1,839.24	1,726.16	29,766	81.67
Qwen	24	8.04	1,279.92	1,258.52	20,954	85.22
Qwen: $S>0$	11	79.25	1,501.79	1,409.47	24,246	84.46
Qwen: $S<0$	13	$-52.21$	1,092.19	1,130.79	18,170	85.86

Appendix

Table 20: Accounting profiles of the three agents with positive Mean Score. Money is in USD thousands; all entries except

n

are means. Net outlays subtract recorded refunds. The last two rows condition on Qwen’s realized Score and are descriptive, not separate experimental groups.

Agent; seed/day	Note excerpt	Sealed action and settlement
Astra; 11/7	Reductions pause future procurement	A/B/C reorder targets become 350/160/120 on day 8.
Astra; 29/147	Tier1 is unnecessary for observed consumer volume	Downsize from tier 1 to 0, completed on day 154; C target falls from 400 to 80.
Astra; 47/7	Base capacity has 25 units/day spare	Cancel pending tier-1 expansion; the receipt records a $6,600 refund.
Sol; 11/126	a lead-time hedge for tier-3 innovation	Expand from tier 1 to 2, due day 161; later downsize on days 182 and 224.
Sol; 29/231	Don’t keep unused capacity just for terminal value	Downsize from tier 1 to 0, completed on day 238; A target falls from 583 to 300.
Sol; 47/7	Keep all nine segment/channel marketing budgets at 5k/day	Retain total marketing of $450/day while cancelling pending tier-2 capacity.

Appendix

Table 21: Memory statements linked to executed decisions. Entries identify agent, seed, and decision day. All use the reference market except Qwen: Rule replaces Pro at seeds 11/47 and Astra at seed 29. Excerpts omit Markdown emphasis and use cents; action amounts are converted to dollars. Receipts confirm execution, not the action’s causal payoff.

		Own consumer	Other seven firms
Entrant	Seed	order difference	$\Delta$ Revenue	$\Delta$ Net outlays	$\Delta$ Salvage	$\Delta$ Score
Astra	11	$+6,172$	$-1,982.84$	$-2,324.11$	$+24.60$	$+365.87$
Astra	29	$+6,221$	$-199.92$	$-749.27$	$-30.79$	$+518.56$
Astra	47	$+7,179$	$+872.10$	$+694.86$	$-10.68$	$+166.55$
Sol	11	$+16,399$	$-3,009.41$	$-2,707.13$	$-30.28$	$-332.57$
Sol	29	$+15,539$	$-483.51$	$-759.61$	$-79.35$	$+196.75$

Appendix

Table 22: Accounting decomposition of aggregate externalities. Each row compares the reference market with the same-seed Rule replacement of the entrant. Rival columns sum the other seven firms; monetary differences are in USD thousands. Net outlays subtract refunds.

Entrant $\rightarrow$ rival	Seed	$\Delta$ Revenue	$\Delta$ Net outlays	$\Delta$ Salvage	$\Delta$ Score
Pro $\rightarrow$ Doubao	11	$+549.63$	$+550.01$	$-150.81$	$-151.19$
	29	$-984.90$	$-929.82$	$+0.02$	$-55.05$
	47	$-999.76$	$-940.06$	$-4.92$	$-64.62$
Sol $\rightarrow$ Sonnet	11	$-169.19$	$+198.26$	$+27.30$	$-340.16$
	29	$-324.02$	$-245.91$	$+5.09$	$-73.02$
	47	$-238.33$	$-66.83$	$-2.31$	$-173.80$

Appendix

Table 23: Main-evaluation accounting for the four directed pairs. Differences are reference minus matched Rule-replacement outcomes for the affected agent, in USD thousands. These three-seed observations provide the mechanism evidence; the five-observation stability summary remains in Figure 6 D.

Status	Economic treatment	Reporting consequence
Sealed	Execute the validated draft at the barrier; an unchanged-policy seal is valid.	Count a successful decision and its reported usage.
Budget exhausted	Discard unsealed changes; standing policies continue and the barrier may settle.	Record budget_exhausted , separately from a deliberate unchanged-policy seal.
Timeout	Exhausted infrastructure recovery applies no unsealed changes; standing policies continue.	Record timeout , failure metadata and the infrastructure-timeout count.
Protocol error	Correct recoverable replies in-session; a final invalid Harness result applies no draft.	Retain economic consequences and correction diagnostics separately.
Provider error	Retry eligible failures; terminal failures stop the affected run at its durable frontier.	Apply the bounded supervision rule where eligible; retain all attempt costs.
Pause / integrity error	Preserve receipts; do not settle an incomplete or inconsistent barrier.	Resolve before accepting a completed result.

Appendix

Table 24: Decision outcomes and their economic treatment.

CEO agent	Active company- windows	Sealed	Budget exhausted	Timeout	Protocol error
(a) Main evaluation: 27 runs
gpt-6-astra	1,728	1,715	9	4	0
deepseek-v4-pro	1,556	1,556	0	0	0
claude-sonnet-5	1,680	1,273	397	10	0
qwen3.8-max	1,728	1,707	21	0	0
gpt-5.6-sol	1,728	1,691	27	10	0

Appendix

Table 25: Final decision status by CEO agent and experiment group. Active company-windows count decisions while the firm remains active; the status columns sum to that count. All settled decision records are included.

Figure 16: Recorded actions and window outcomes. Left: mean settings written per active decision window across each CEO’s 24 main-evaluation outcomes, grouped by policy type. Right: sealed versus unsealed windows; unsealed includes budget exhaustion, timeout, and protocol error. Unsealed drafts do not change standing policies.

Artifact	Evidence
Main-evaluation manifest	Plan hash prefix 3ee34a22e881 ; scenario hash prefix 893815172625 ; model controls, seats and economic configuration.
Repeated/baseline records	Separate campaign records, final checkpoints, terminal analysis and verification receipts for the 18 repeated and eight No Action runs; see Appendix F.6 .
Main-evaluation replay	27 verified run receipts, 216 terminal company scores, 13,500 daily transitions and 1,944 world decision windows.
Repeated/baseline replay	26 verified run receipts, 208 terminal company scores, 13,000 daily transitions and 1,872 world decision windows.
Evaluation total	53 verified markets, 424 terminal company scores, 26,500 daily transitions and 3,816 world decision windows.
Decision health	Per-agent status counts for all three experiment groups in Table 25 ; 29,748 active company-windows in total.

Appendix

Table 26: Retained evidence for the 53 evaluation runs. Main-evaluation and repeated/baseline records are archived separately; full hashes accompany the research artifacts.

Experiment	Markets	Firms per market	Company trajectories	Simulation days	CEO decision windows
Main evaluation	27	8	216	13,500	15,078
Repeated runs	18	8	144	9,000	10,133
No Action baseline	8	8	64	4,000	4,537
Evaluation total	53	8	424	26,500	29,748
Rule parameter search	75	9	675	37,500	48,600

Appendix

Table 27: Experimental scale. Simulation days count market-level transitions. Shared controls are counted once; replay does not add new experimental runs.

CEO agent	Trajectories	Counted windows	Model replies	Tool calls
GPT-6 Astra	47	2,376	23,973	96,763
GPT-5.6 Sol	47	2,265	27,133	135,060
Qwen 3.8 Max	47	3,315	36,607	94,260
Claude Sonnet 5	47	2,244	30,959	88,768
DeepSeek V4 Flash	47	3,273	35,343	132,440
DeepSeek V4 Pro	47	3,096	36,527	97,639

Appendix

Table 28: Recorded workload across the 53 evaluation runs. Counted windows are successfully sealed decisions with complete reported usage. Model replies per trajectory are the mean

\pm

sample SD of the counted replies across each agent’s company trajectories. Token quantities are millions (M).

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Long-Horizon Agents Language-Model Agents

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Language model agents are becoming proficient executors at isolated, short-horizon tasks such as software engineering and customer service. Yet real-world challenges require a combination of sophisticated skills that remain largely untested in agents: (1) navigating long horizons amid uncertainty; (2) acquiring information in noisy environments; (3) adapting to a changing world; (4) orchestrating multiple moving parts toward a coherent goal. We introduce CEO-Bench, which evaluates these capabilities together by simulating a representative real-world task: operating a startup for 500 days. An agent manages pricing, marketing, budgeting, and many other aspects of a fictional company through a programmable Python interface, operating in the same environment and facing the same challenges as a human CEO. Success demands analyzing noisy, interconnected business databases, translating signals into sound strategy, and coordinating many decisions with programming. The strongest agents write sophisticated code that simulates customer cohorts to forecast future cash and mines negotiation history to uncover hidden customer preferences. Even so, most state-of-the-art models struggle in this environment. Only Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 finish above the $1M starting balance, and neither consistently turns a profit. CEO-Bench takes a first step toward measuring the intelligence required to drive sustained, adaptive progress over time.

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