{"slug": "sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8", "title": "Sakana AI launches Sakana Marlin, an autonomous deep research agent that thinks for 8 hours straight", "summary": "Tokyo-based AI startup Sakana AI launched Sakana Marlin on June 15, its first commercial product, an autonomous deep research agent that runs for up to eight hours to generate 100-page strategy reports. Positioned as a 'Virtual CSO,' the B2B tool targets finance and consulting sectors, with pricing starting at ¥150,000 monthly. The company, valued at $2.65 billion, has raised over $335 million from investors including MUFG and Khosla Ventures.", "body_md": "# Sakana AI launches Sakana Marlin, an autonomous deep research agent that thinks for 8 hours straight\n\nTokyo-based AI startup debuts its first commercial product, a 'virtual CSO' that generates 100-page strategy reports without human intervention\n\nMost AI chatbots pride themselves on speed. Sakana AI just built one that takes its sweet time on purpose.\n\nThe Tokyo-based AI research startup launched Sakana Marlin on June 15, its first commercial product. Rather than spitting out instant responses like every other chatbot on the market, Marlin is designed to run autonomous research tasks for up to eight hours, producing comprehensive strategy reports that can stretch to roughly 100 pages.\n\n## A virtual Chief Strategy Officer, minus the corner office\n\nSakana AI is positioning Marlin as a “Virtual CSO,” a B2B research agent that mimics the strategic thinking process of a senior executive. The system autonomously forms hypotheses, gathers information from online sources, reconciles conflicting data, and synthesizes everything into polished deliverables, including executive summary slides.\n\nThe product grew out of two notable research efforts at Sakana AI. One is the AI Scientist framework, which earned a feature in Nature. The other is AB-MCTS, a reasoning method that was spotlighted at NeurIPS 2025.\n\nBefore going public, Sakana ran a closed beta starting in April 2026 with approximately 300 professionals from sectors including finance and consulting. Pricing follows a dual structure: a pay-per-use model at 100 credits per run, or monthly plans starting at ¥150,000 (roughly $1,000 at current exchange rates).\n\n## The money behind the machine\n\nSakana AI is not short on capital. Founded in July 2023, the company raised $200 million in its Series A round in 2024. It followed that up with a Series B of approximately $135 million in late 2025, landing at a post-money valuation of about $2.65 billion.\n\nBackers include MUFG, Japan’s largest financial group, and Khosla Ventures, the Silicon Valley firm known for aggressive AI bets.\n\n## What this means for crypto and finance\n\nSakana Marlin is not a crypto product. It doesn’t trade tokens, manage wallets, or run on-chain. But among the sample analysis topics Sakana has highlighted are regulatory changes for stablecoins in Japan and enterprise AI agent market mapping, both of which sit squarely at the intersection of fintech and digital assets.\n\nThe risk, as always with AI agents operating without human oversight for hours at a time, is hallucination at scale. A chatbot that makes something up in a two-paragraph response is annoying. An autonomous agent that builds a flawed assumption into page 12 of a 100-page strategy report, then compounds it through 88 more pages of analysis, is a different kind of problem entirely.\n\n**Disclosure:** This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our\n\n[Editorial Policy](https://cryptobriefing.com/editorial-policy/).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8", "canonical_source": "https://cryptobriefing.com/sakana-ai-launches-marlin-deep-research-agent/", "published_at": "2026-06-15 19:36:11+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-15 19:37:15.359644+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-agents", "ai-startups", "ai-products", "ai-research", "generative-ai"], "entities": ["Sakana AI", "Sakana Marlin", "MUFG", "Khosla Ventures", "NeurIPS", "Nature"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/sakana-ai-launches-sakana-marlin-an-autonomous-deep-research-agent-that-thinks-8.jsonld"}}