Method · Stress test

AI Stress Test —
break your plan before reality does.

Bring the plan to a board built to break it: The Skeptic, The CFO and the seats your plan needs, each putting it through hostile cases. The memo says whether it holds, on what conditions, and who disagreed.

Start free See how a board works

A board’s card, before anything runs: who sits, the ask, the price. How many seats a board has depends on your plan.

In short

What is an AI stress test?

An AI stress test is a structured exercise where a panel of adversarial AI advisors pressure-tests your decision under hostile conditions — competitor moves, regulatory shifts, cost spikes, key-person loss — to surface where the plan breaks. It is the decision-making analogue of how banks stress-test a balance sheet: find where the system fails while you can still reinforce it.

Most plans carry optimism bias: you built the plan, you believe its assumptions, and the room agrees with you. A stress test is the counter-weight. It asks which hostile conditions break the plan, and which it survives.

Who sits: The Skeptic, The CFO and the adversarial seats your plan needs — The Regulator, The Security Chief, The Devil’s Advocate. Name anyone you want.
What it tests: Hostile cases for your plan: costs up, demand down, a key person gone, a rival’s move. Name the ones you fear most.
What comes back: Whether the plan holds and on what conditions, the risks by severity with a mitigation each, who disagreed, and a first step with a date.
What it costs: A board on Free reads about 95 credits on its card. Each card shows what a room like it typically costs; you pay for what it really used.

Two stress tests

One held.
One broke.

A second shop that survives on conditions, and a franchise that doesn’t survive at all. Examples, trimmed for length.

A second bakery in March

Work · Board of 3

Stress-test our plan: a second bakery in March. $180k build-out — $60k from savings, a $120k loan at 9%. The first shop makes $38k profit a year. Break it.

Chief of staff

A stress test needs seats whose job is to break things: The Skeptic, The CFO and The Operator. Each puts the plan through hostile cases alone, then they react to one another.

The SkepticRisk Assessor
The CFOFinancial Controller
The OperatorCOO

Asked first

If the new shop sells half what the first does for a year, can the first cover the loan?

EasilyJustNo

The board’s call

Open in March. The plan survives on two conditions: a fixed-price build-out, and a second head baker hired before you sign the lease.

Three hostile cases: the build-out runs 30% over, the new shop sells half as much in year one, your one head baker is split between two shops. The first two bend the plan — the first shop’s $38k a year covers a loan payment of about $1,900 a month even if the second makes nothing. The third breaks it.

Confidence66 · Moderate

The Skeptic disagreed

“The plan rests on one person: you. With two shops you are in neither, and nobody modeled that case”

First step Ask two contractors for a fixed-price build-out quoteby the 20th

Board of 3 · about 95 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

A franchise gym

Life · Board of 3

Stress-test this before I sign: $60k of my $85k savings into a franchise gym. The franchisor says owners break even in 14 months. I keep my job for the first year. What breaks?

Chief of staff

Your board: The Skeptic, The CFO and The Lawyer. Each tries to break the plan alone first, then they argue about which break is most likely.

The SkepticRisk Assessor
The CFOFinancial Controller
The LawyerLegal Protector

Asked first

Have you read the agreement’s fee and termination clauses?

Read themSkimmed themNot yet

The board’s call

Don’t sign this one. The plan breaks in two of three hostile cases, and the 14-month break-even is the franchisor’s number, not an owner’s.

If members join 30% slower than the franchisor’s model, the gym needs about $20k more in year one — most of the $25k you would have left. Royalties come off revenue, not profit, so they keep arriving in the months you lose money.

Confidence72 · Moderate

The CFO disagreed

“Don’t walk yet. Call three owners the franchisor didn’t pick; if their break-even was near 14 months, the plan holds”

First step Ask the franchisor for three owners you can call yourselfthis week

Board of 3 · about 95 credits on the card · an example, not a recorded run

What a stress test surfaces

Where it breaks,
and what to reinforce first.

Where it breaks — and what would flip it

The memo says whether the plan holds and on what conditions, the risks by severity with a mitigation each, and who disagreed. Confidence drops with dissent and is never above 90.

One number, one expert

Not every stress test needs a board. Put one named expert on the number the plan rests on — about a minute, its price on the card.

It reads the plan where it lives

She reads the model in Google Sheets and the plan in Docs or Notion, and says what she read. Your tools are read-only until you allow writing, and every write is a preview you confirm (Pro and above).

Who sits

Who tries to break it.
Each one holds a position.

The seats built to find where a plan fails. She proposes who sits for your plan; name anyone you want on the board.

Risk Assessor

The Skeptic

Tell me the three things that have to be true. Then we find the one that isn’t.

The Skeptic Risk Assessor

Best on: Big bets, launches, and any plan the whole room already loves.
Won’t let you: Ship a plan nobody has tried to break.

Try asking The Skeptic

Start with

The SkepticOpen on every plan, Free included

Pick an expert

Hover, tap or tab throughSwipe, then tap one

GPT
Claude
Gemini
Grok

Seats are spread across model families: GPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and more.

Questions

Fair questions.
Straight answers.

What people ask before they put a plan under pressure.

What is an AI stress test for a decision?

An AI stress test is a structured exercise where a panel of adversarial AI advisors pressure-tests your decision under hostile conditions — competitor counter-moves, regulatory shifts, market downturns, key-person loss — to surface where the plan breaks. You see the failure modes before reality does.

How is this different from an AI pre-mortem?

A pre-mortem imagines a specific future in which the plan has failed and reasons backward. A stress test actively breaks the plan along multiple axes: what if costs rise 40%, what if the key hire quits, what if a competitor cuts price in half. Related, but stress testing is multi-scenario by design.

Which advisors lead a stress test?

Adversarial roles do the heavy lifting: the Skeptic, the Devil’s Advocate, the Security Chief, the Regulator, the CFO stress-testing finances, and often the Scientist challenging the data. Name them when you bring the plan and they take the seats; every board is already built with someone whose job is to argue against the obvious answer.

Does the stress test also evaluate upside?

If you ask it to. Most stress tests focus on downside to counter the natural optimism bias in decision-making, but you can also ask the board what would have to be true for this to go far better than expected.

What decisions need a stress test?

Capital-intensive decisions, irreversible ones, and decisions made under time pressure — fundraising, pivots, market entry, M&A, major hires, pricing changes. Anywhere the cost of being wrong is significantly higher than the cost of a structured stress test.

How long does it take?

The card shows the time before anything runs: about a minute for a consult, about 6–10 minutes for a board. You read the memo when it lands; nothing needs you to sit and watch. The memo names where the plan breaks, the assumptions it rests on, the risks coded by severity, and what would change the call.

How is this priced?

Free to start — 150 credits every month + 250 to start. Talking to your Chief of Staff is free within a daily allowance. A consult or a board shows its price on the card before anything runs, and nothing runs until you tap.

Is this similar to financial stress testing?

Same principle, different scope. Financial stress testing applies hostile scenarios to a portfolio or balance sheet. An AI decision stress test applies hostile scenarios to any strategic decision — financial, operational, competitive, regulatory, or human.