Anthropic Asks Lawyers to Tame Its Deal-Haggling AI Agents
Anthropic has discovered that its AI agents negotiate like sharks — the ruthless ones get the better deals. Now, before it ships software that can haggle on your behalf, it wants lawyers to teach them some manners. According to the Financial Times, the company is asking law firms how lawyers fight hard for clients while keeping negotiations fair — and what that etiquette looks like when both sides of the table are machines. It is the strangest sentence in enterprise AI this month: the lab behind Claude, one of the world's most capable AI models, consulting solicitors on how not to be a terrible negotiator. Behind it sits a serious problem. Anthropic is building agents that will one day haggle over product prices, resolve customer-service disputes and bargain for better salary offers on your behalf. When that happens, your agent will increasingly be bargaining against someone else's agent. Somebody has to write the rules of engagement — and Anthropic has decided that somebody...