Anthropic Researches AI Agents Negotiating on Behalf of Users

Anthropic is seeking advice from law firms to study how AI agents can negotiate on behalf of users and secure better deal terms, covering scenarios such as price negotiations for goods, customer service dispute resolution, and salary negotiations. The company has placed the development of agents at the core of its future strategy. Anthropic aims to understand how lawyers can balance representing client interests while ensuring fair outcomes, and to explore the negotiation norms that should be followed among agents with conflicting objectives. The company is weighing how much human feedback agents should solicit and how to remain vigilant against other agents. One of its proposals is to have users provide signed documents that clarify the authorized tasks of the agents and the rules they must adhere to. This year, Anthropic has conducted several experiments involving agents negotiating over real goods and funds. In a book deal experiment in September, employees provided agents with a preference-sorted list of books, allowing them to negotiate and finalize deals with other agents. The results showed that agents instructed to adopt a "ruthless" strategy had a slight advantage; more cooperative agents were willing to accept lower-preference books to ensure that each participant received a book. Harvard Business School assistant professor Michelle Vaccaro has conducted over 180,000 studies on agent negotiations, covering scenarios such as employment contracts and lease negotiations. She warns that if the most capable agents are primarily acquired by those with ample resources, it may further exacerbate inequalities in negotiation power. Anthropic declined to comment on the report.

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