mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

How Well Can LLMs Negotiate? NegotiationArena Platform and Analysis

arXiv 2402.05863 ↗First posted 8 Feb 2024cs.AI cs.CL cs.GTcited by 100

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Social simulation and multi-agent debate

Abstract (arXiv)

Negotiation is the basis of social interactions; humans negotiate everything from the price of cars to how to share common resources. With rapidly growing interest in using large language models (LLMs) to act as agents on behalf of human users, such LLM agents would also need to be able to negotiate. In this paper, we study how well LLMs can negotiate with each other. We develop NegotiationArena: a flexible framework for evaluating and probing the negotiation abilities of LLM agents. We implemented three types of scenarios in NegotiationArena to assess LLM's behaviors in allocating shared resources (ultimatum games), aggregate resources (trading games) and buy/sell goods (price negotiations). Each scenario allows for multiple turns of flexible dialogues between LLM agents to allow for more complex negotiations. Interestingly, LLM agents can significantly boost their negotiation outcomes by employing certain behavioral tactics. For example, by pretending to be desolate and desperate, LLMs can improve their payoffs by 20% when negotiating against the standard GPT-4. We also quantify irrational negotiation behaviors exhibited by the LLM agents, many of which also appear in humans. Together, NegotiationArena offers a new environment to investigate LLM interactions, enabling new insights into LLM's theory of mind, irrationality, and reasoning abilities.

Key facts. Cited by 100 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Social simulation and multi-agent debate, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 16 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Feb 2024.

Builds on

16 of 39 references.

References · 16

  1. 2021Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Codecited by 8,320
  2. 2018GLUE: A Multi-Task Benchmark and Analysis Platform for Natural Language Understandingcited by 4,899
  3. 2022Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans and Replicate Human Subject Studiescited by 515
  4. 2023SOTOPIA: Interactive Evaluation for Social Intelligence in Language Agentscited by 367
  5. 2023Playing repeated games with Large Language Modelscited by 217
  6. 2023Improving Language Model Negotiation with Self-Play and In-Context Learning from AI Feedbackcited by 207
  7. 2018Decoupling Strategy and Generation in Negotiation Dialoguescited by 162
  8. 2020Compositionality and Generalization in Emergent Languagescited by 103
  9. 2023Suspicion-Agent: Playing Imperfect Information Games with Theory of Mind Aware GPT-4cited by 68
  10. 2018Emergent Communication through Negotiationcited by 62
  11. 2021CaSiNo: A Corpus of Campsite Negotiation Dialogues for Automatic Negotiation Systemscited by 62
  12. 2024Evaluating Language Model Agency through Negotiationscited by 48
4 more
  1. 2019EGG: a toolkit for research on Emergence of lanGuage in Gamescited by 42
  2. 2020Improving Dialog Systems for Negotiation with Personality Modelingcited by 38
  3. 2022Let's Negotiate! A Survey of Negotiation Dialogue Systemscited by 31
  4. 2023Negotiating with LLMS: Prompt Hacks, Skill Gaps, and Reasoning Deficitscited by 16

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 18; 2025: 33; 2026: 49.

100 papers.

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  1. 2025Agentic Large Language Models, a surveycited by 108
  2. 2024Game-theoretic LLM: Agent Workflow for Negotiation Gamescited by 56
  3. 2025SiriuS: Self-improving Multi-agent Systems via Bootstrapped Reasoningcited by 44
  4. 2024Richelieu: Self-Evolving LLM-Based Agents for AI Diplomacycited by 36
  5. 2025Persuade Me if You Can: A Framework for Evaluating Persuasion Effectiveness and Susceptibility Among Large Language Modelscited by 27
  6. 2024Social Science Meets LLMs: How Reliable Are Large Language Models in Social Simulations?cited by 26
  7. 2024SocialMind: LLM-based Proactive AR Social Assistive System with Human-like Perception for In-situ Live Interactionscited by 25
  8. 2024A Survey on Large Language Model-Based Social Agents in Game-Theoretic Scenarioscited by 23
  9. 2024STRIDE: A Tool-Assisted LLM Agent Framework for Strategic and Interactive Decision-Makingcited by 22
  10. 2025MetaAgent: Automatically Constructing Multi-Agent Systems Based on Finite State Machinescited by 22
  11. 2025Drift No More? Context Equilibria in Multi-Turn LLM Interactionscited by 22
  12. 2024Strength Lies in Differences! Improving Strategy Planning for Non-collaborative Dialogues via Diversified User Simulationcited by 21
38 more
  1. 2024GLEE: A Unified Framework and Benchmark for Language-based Economic Environmentscited by 20
  2. 2025Magentic Marketplace: An Open-Source Environment for Studying Agentic Marketscited by 19
  3. 2024Quantifying and Optimizing Global Faithfulness in Persona-driven Role-playingcited by 17
  4. 2025Game Theory Meets Large Language Models: A Systematic Survey with Taxonomy and New Frontierscited by 16
  5. 2025MARSHAL: Incentivizing Multi-Agent Reasoning via Self-Play with Strategic LLMscited by 16
  6. 2024Lies, Damned Lies, and Distributional Language Statistics: Persuasion and Deception with Large Language Modelscited by 15
  7. 2025Adaptive Social Learning via Mode Policy Optimization for Language Agentscited by 15
  8. 2025The Automated but Risky Game: Modeling and Benchmarking Agent-to-Agent Negotiations and Transactions in Consumer Marketscited by 15
  9. 2026Agentic World Modeling: Foundations, Capabilities, Laws, and Beyondcited by 14
  10. 2024Modelling Political Coalition Negotiations Using LLM-based Agentscited by 13
  11. 2024Dialogue Action Tokens: Steering Language Models in Goal-Directed Dialogue with a Multi-Turn Plannercited by 13
  12. 2024Evolution of Social Norms in LLM Agents using Natural Languagecited by 13
  13. 2024ACE: A LLM-based Negotiation Coaching Systemcited by 13
  14. 2025Must Read: A Comprehensive Survey of Computational Persuasioncited by 13
  15. 2026AgenticPay: A Multi-Agent LLM Negotiation System for Buyer-Seller Transactionscited by 12
  16. 2024EgoSocialArena: Benchmarking the Social Intelligence of Large Language Models from a First-person Perspectivecited by 10
  17. 2025SOTOPIA-S4: a user-friendly system for flexible, customizable, and large-scale social simulationcited by 10
  18. 2025Distributive Fairness in Large Language Models: Evaluating Alignment with Human Valuescited by 9
  19. 2025ARIA: Training Language Agents with Intention-Driven Reward Aggregationcited by 9
  20. 2025Beyond Nash Equilibrium: Bounded Rationality of LLMs and humans in Strategic Decision-makingcited by 9
  21. 2026TERMS-Bench: Diagnosing LLM Negotiation Agents Beyond Deal Ratecited by 9
  22. 2024Assessing Social Alignment: Do Personality-Prompted Large Language Models Behave Like Humans?cited by 8
  23. 2025Resource Rational Contractualism Should Guide AI Alignmentcited by 8
  24. 2026M3-BENCH: Process-Aware Evaluation of LLM Agents' Social Behaviors in Mixed-Motive Gamescited by 8
  25. 2025Collab-REC: An LLM-based Agentic Framework for Balancing Recommendations in Tourismcited by 7
  26. 2025How Does Cognitive Bias Affect Large Language Models? A Case Study on the Anchoring Effect in Price Negotiation Simulationscited by 7
  27. 2026Instructing LLMs to Negotiate using Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewardscited by 7
  28. 2026CalBench: Evaluating Coordination-Privacy Trade-offs in Multi-Agent LLMscited by 7
  29. 2025AI Realtor: Towards Grounded Persuasive Language Generation for Automated Copywritingcited by 6
  30. 2025Evaluating Behavioral Alignment in Conflict Dialogue: A Multi-Dimensional Comparison of LLM Agents and Humanscited by 6
  31. 2024Engagement-Driven Content Generation with Large Language Modelscited by 5
  32. 2026Real-Time Deadlines Reveal Fragile Temporal Adaptation in LLM Strategic Dialoguescited by 5
  33. 2026Training Language Models for Bilateral Trade with Private Informationcited by 5
  34. 2025ASTRA: A Negotiation Agent with Adaptive and Strategic Reasoning via Tool-integrated Action for Dynamic Offer Optimizationcited by 4
  35. 2025Moral Susceptibility and Robustness under Persona Role-Play in Large Language Modelscited by 4
  36. 2026Strategic Bargaining in Multi-Buyer Markets: Reinforcement Learning from Verifiable Rewards for LLM Negotiationscited by 4
  37. 2025Enhancing Reasoning with Collaboration and Memorycited by 3
  38. 2025Iterative GRPO: Batch-Online Multi-Turn RL via Single-Turn RLHFcited by 3

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  1. 2024Measuring Bargaining Abilities of LLMs: A Benchmark and A Buyer-Enhancement Method
  2. 2024LLMs with Personalities in Multi-issue Negotiation Games
  3. 2025LLM Agents for Bargaining with Utility-based Feedback
  4. 2025The Illusion of Rationality: Tacit Bias and Strategic Dominance in Frontier LLM Negotiation Games
  5. 2024AgreeMate: Teaching LLMs to Haggle
  6. 2026Do LLM Agents Negotiate Rationally? A Mechanism-Design Framework for Verifiable Multi-Agent Interaction over A2A/MCP
  7. 2024Simulating Human Strategic Behavior: Comparing Single and Multi-agent LLMs
  8. 2025Effects of Theory of Mind and Prosocial Beliefs on Steering Human-Aligned Behaviors of LLMs in Ultimatum Games