# Examining Identity Drift in Conversations of LLM Agents

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00804 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00804/

## Key facts

- Cited by 25 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 15 of its 69 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Social simulation and multi-agent debate](https://mlsanity.com/agents/social-simulation-and-multi-agent-debate/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21783/) (2024)
- [Qwen2 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10671/) (2024)
- [Evaluating Very Long-Term Conversational Memory of LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17753/) (2024)
- [Quantifying Language Models' Sensitivity to Spurious Features in Prompt Design or: How I learned to start worrying about prompt formatting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11324/) (2023)
- [BERTopic: Neural topic modeling with a class-based TF-IDF procedure](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05794/) (2022)
- [A Survey on the Memory Mechanism of Large Language Model based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.13501/) (2024)
- [Exploring Collaboration Mechanisms for LLM Agents: A Social Psychology View](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02124/) (2023)
- [Two Tales of Persona in LLMs: A Survey of Role-Playing and Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.01171/) (2024)
- [PersonaGym: Evaluating Persona Agents and LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18416/) (2024)
- [SOTOPIA-π: Interactive Learning of Socially Intelligent Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08715/) (2024)
- [MetaAgents: Large Language Model Based Agents for Decision-Making on Teaming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06500/) (2023)
- [Let the LLMs Talk: Simulating Human-to-Human Conversational QA via Zero-Shot LLM-to-LLM Interactions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02913/) (2023)
- [Learning to Memorize Entailment and Discourse Relations for Persona-Consistent Dialogues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04871/) (2023)
- [Enhancing Supermarket Robot Interaction: A Multi-Level LLM Conversational Interface for Handling Diverse Customer Intents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11047/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [The Illusion of Diminishing Returns: Measuring Long Horizon Execution in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.09677/) (2025)
- [Agentic AI Security: Threats, Defenses, Evaluation, and Open Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.23883/) (2025)
- [On the Failure of Latent State Persistence in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10571/) (2025)
- [Echoing: Identity Failures when LLM Agents Talk to Each Other](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.09710/) (2025)
- [Mitigating Conversational Inertia in Multi-Turn Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.03664/) (2026)
- [Social Theory Should Be a Structural Prior for Agentic AI: A Formal Framework for Multi-Agent Social Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07069/) (2026)
- [ContextEcho: A Benchmark for Persona Drift in Long Agentic-Coding Sessions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.24279/) (2026)
- [The Narrative Continuity Test: A Conceptual Framework for Evaluating Identity Persistence in AI Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.24831/) (2025)
- [Neural Transparency: Mechanistic Interpretability Interfaces for Anticipating Model Behaviors for Personalized AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.00230/) (2025)
- [Pay What LLM Wants: Can LLM Simulate Economics Experiment with 522 Real-human Persona?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.03262/) (2025)
- [Identifying and Mitigating Bottlenecks in Role-Playing Agents: A Systematic Study of Disentangling Character Profile Axes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04716/) (2026)
- [Probing the Lack of Stable Internal Beliefs in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25187/) (2026)
- [MUSE: Multi-Domain Chinese User Simulation via Self-Evolving Profiles and Rubric-Guided Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.13828/) (2026)
- [Belief Engine: Configurable and Inspectable Stance Dynamics in Multi-Agent LLM Deliberation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.15343/) (2026)
- [Incoherent Values? Probing LLM Preferences Through Parametric Variation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21102/) (2026)
- [Decoding the Human Factor: High Fidelity Behavioral Prediction for Strategic Foresight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17222/) (2026)
- [Quantitative Introspection in Language Models: Tracking Emotive States Across Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18893/) (2026)
- [FinPersona-Bench: A Benchmark for Longitudinal Psychometric Stability of Autonomous Financial Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31522/) (2026)
- [On the Limits of Steering Vectors for Preference-Aligned Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.01802/) (2026)
- [Deco: Extending Cherished Physical Objects into AI Companion Agents through Dual Embodiment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.03882/) (2026)
- [Measuring What Persists: Conditioning Mechanisms and a Geometric Framework for AI Agent Identity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.21843/) (2026)
- [When Counterbalancing Hides the Bias: Access-Conditioned Position Lock in Forced-Choice LLM Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10202/) (2026)
- [AI YOU Town: Make Friends and Money with Your Digital Twin](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10539/) (2026)
- [ANIMASK: What the Model Contributes to Role Play in Simulated Story Worlds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16667/) (2026)
- [The Persona Is Still There, but Who Is Speaking? Latent Identity Reversion in Persistent AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.01490/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) show impressive conversational abilities but sometimes show identity drift problems, where their interaction patterns or styles change over time. As the problem has not been thoroughly examined yet, this study examines identity consistency across nine LLMs. Specifically, we (1) investigate whether LLMs could maintain consistent patterns (or identity) and (2) analyze the effect of the model family, parameter sizes, and provided persona types. Our experiments involve multi-turn conversations on personal themes, analyzed in qualitative and quantitative ways. Experimental results indicate three findings. (1) Larger models experience greater identity drift. (2) Model differences exist, but their effect is not stronger than parameter sizes. (3) Assigning a persona may not help to maintain identity. We hope these three findings can help to improve persona stability in AI-driven dialogue systems, particularly in long-term conversations.