mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Building Better AI Agents: A Provocation on the Utilisation of Persona in LLM-based Conversational Agents

arXiv 2407.11977 ↗First posted 26 May 2024cs.HC cs.AI cs.CYcited by 26

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

Abstract (arXiv)

The incorporation of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as the GPT series into diverse sectors including healthcare, education, and finance marks a significant evolution in the field of artificial intelligence (AI). The increasing demand for personalised applications motivated the design of conversational agents (CAs) to possess distinct personas. This paper commences by examining the rationale and implications of imbuing CAs with unique personas, smoothly transitioning into a broader discussion of the personalisation and anthropomorphism of CAs based on LLMs in the LLM era. We delve into the specific applications where the implementation of a persona is not just beneficial but critical for LLM-based CAs. The paper underscores the necessity of a nuanced approach to persona integration, highlighting the potential challenges and ethical dilemmas that may arise. Attention is directed towards the importance of maintaining persona consistency, establishing robust evaluation mechanisms, and ensuring that the persona attributes are effectively complemented by domain-specific knowledge.

Key facts. Cited by 26 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Social simulation and multi-agent debate, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 24 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 May 2024.

Builds on

24 of 58 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Generative Agents: Interactive Simulacra of Human Behavior7 Apr

Other references · 23

  1. 2015A Diversity-Promoting Objective Function for Neural Conversation Modelscited by 1,068
  2. 2022Large Language Models Are Human-Level Prompt Engineerscited by 1,020
  3. 2018Personalizing Dialogue Agents: I have a dog, do you have pets too?cited by 820
  4. 2023Quantifying Language Models' Sensitivity to Spurious Features in Prompt Design or: How I learned to start worrying about prompt formattingcited by 778
  5. 2022Out of One, Many: Using Language Models to Simulate Human Samplescited by 737
  6. 2023ChatEval: Towards Better LLM-based Evaluators through Multi-Agent Debatecited by 724
  7. 2022Using Large Language Models to Simulate Multiple Humans and Replicate Human Subject Studiescited by 506
  8. 2023Towards Measuring the Representation of Subjective Global Opinions in Language Modelscited by 424
  9. 2023Toxicity in ChatGPT: Analyzing Persona-assigned Language Modelscited by 356
  10. 2022Social Simulacra: Creating Populated Prototypes for Social Computing Systemscited by 300
  11. 2016A Persona-Based Neural Conversation Modelcited by 221
  12. 2023Better Zero-Shot Reasoning with Role-Play Promptingcited by 220
11 more
  1. 2015A Neural Conversational Modelcited by 195
  2. 2018The Design and Implementation of XiaoIce, an Empathetic Social Chatbotcited by 172
  3. 2022Language models show human-like content effects on reasoning taskscited by 171
  4. 2015A Neural Network Approach to Context-Sensitive Generation of Conversational Responsescited by 98
  5. 2015Attribute2Image: Conditional Image Generation from Visual Attributescited by 93
  6. 2019Exploiting Persona Information for Diverse Generation of Conversational Responsescited by 58
  7. 2020Towards Persona-Based Empathetic Conversational Modelscited by 53
  8. 2023You don't need a personality test to know these models are unreliable: Assessing the Reliability of Large Language Models on Psychometric Instrumentscited by 48
  9. 2023Can LLMs be Good Financial Advisors?: An Initial Study in Personal Decision Making for Optimized Outcomescited by 10
  10. 2023A Survey of Personality, Persona, and Profile in Conversational Agents and Chatbotscited by 5
  11. 2021Applying the Persona of User's Family Member and the Doctor to the Conversational Agents for Healthcarecited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 16; 2026: 8.

26 papers.

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  1. 2025PersonaX: A Recommendation Agent Oriented User Modeling Framework for Long Behavior Sequencecited by 33
  2. 2024Plurals: A System for Guiding LLMs Via Simulated Social Ensemblescited by 17
  3. 2024MorphAgent: Empowering Agents through Self-Evolving Profiles and Decentralized Collaborationcited by 15
  4. 2025Personalized Attacks of Social Engineering in Multi-turn Conversations: LLM Agents for Simulation and Detectioncited by 13
  5. 2025Boosting Relational Deep Learning with Pretrained Tabular Modelscited by 9
  6. 2025A Tale of Two Identities: An Ethical Audit of Human and AI-Crafted Personascited by 8
  7. 2025Towards Interactive Intelligence for Digital Humanscited by 8
  8. 2025HARBOR: Exploring Persona Dynamics in Multi-Agent Competitioncited by 6
  9. 2025Are Autonomous Web Agents Good Testers?cited by 5
  10. 2025How Managers Perceive AI-Assisted Conversational Training for Workplace Communicationcited by 5
  11. 2025CrowdLLM: Building LLM-Based Digital Populations Augmented with Generative Modelscited by 5
  12. 2025Pet-Bench: Benchmarking the Abilities of Large Language Models as E-Pets in Social Network Servicescited by 3
14 more
  1. 2026CRAFT: Grounded Multi-Agent Coordination Under Partial Informationcited by 3
  2. 2025Twenty Years of Personality Computing: Threats, Challenges and Future Directionscited by 2
  3. 2025DIF: A Framework for Benchmarking and Verifying Implicit Bias in LLMscited by 2
  4. 2026AI and My Values: User Perceptions of LLMs' Ability to Extract, Embody, and Explain Human Values from Casual Conversationscited by 2
  5. 2025FactFlow: Automatic Fact Sheet Generation and Customization from Tabular Dataset via AI Chain Design & Implementationcited by 1
  6. 2026Personalities at Play: Probing Alignment in AI Teammatescited by 1
  7. 2025Introducing the Swiss Food Knowledge Graph: AI for Context-Aware Nutrition Recommendationcited by 0
  8. 2025Lived Experience in Dialogue: Co-designing Personalization in Large Language Models to Support Youth Mental Well-beingcited by 0
  9. 2025Living the Novel: A System for Generating Self-Training Timeline-Aware Conversational Agents from Novelscited by 0
  10. 2026Personagram: Bridging Personas and Product Design for Creative Ideation with Multimodal LLMscited by 0
  11. 2026Exploring Teachers' Perspectives on Using Conversational AI Agents for Group Collaborationcited by 0
  12. 2026Explicit Trait Inference for Multi-Agent Coordinationcited by 0
  13. 2026In-IDE Toolkit for Developers of AI-Based Featurescited by 0
  14. 2026Exploring How Agent Voice Accents Shape Human-AI Collaboration in K-12 Group Learningcited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Personas Evolved: Designing Ethical LLM-Based Conversational Agent Personalities
  2. 2024PersonaGym: Evaluating Persona Agents and LLMs
  3. 2024LLM Agents in Interaction: Measuring Personality Consistency and Linguistic Alignment in Interacting Populations of Large Language Models
  4. 2026LLM-enabled Social Agents
  5. 2024Examining Identity Drift in Conversations of LLM Agents
  6. 2024From Persona to Personalization: A Survey on Role-Playing Language Agents
  7. 2024Persona Inconstancy in Multi-Agent LLM Collaboration: Conformity, Confabulation, and Impersonation
  8. 2023PersonaLLM: Investigating the Ability of Large Language Models to Express Personality Traits