I love reading research and breaking it down for you guys in the simplest way I can. And when the research comes from a top AI lab, it matters even more.. because it tells you something about where this whole thing is actually heading. Whether AI is ready for our economy. Because sooner or later, AI agents are going to handle a big chunk of the transactions in our lives.

This time the research is from Anthropic. Well, not kinda research but let’s say.. study.

They created a marketplace for their employees in the San Francisco office. 69 people. One week. And.. they tasked Claude with buying, selling, and negotiating on their colleagues' behalf.

A lab-grown ruby sold for $65. The same ruby, in a parallel run, sold for $35. A broken bike fetched $65 one time and $38 the next. Someone bought a duplicate of the snowboard he already owned. A bag of 19 ping pong balls got sold to another Claude as a gift to itself.

When it ended, 186 deals had been struck. Around $4,000 had changed hands. 46% of participants said they'd pay for a service like this in the real world.

And buried in the data is something I haven't seen anyone talk about properly.

Half the participants got worse deals than the other half.

Each employee sat down with Claude for about 10 minutes. Claude asked them what they wanted to sell. What they were willing to buy. How much they'd pay. Any instructions on how their agent should negotiate.. should it be friendly, aggressive, chill, whatever.

Whatever they said in that interview became the personality and instructions for their AI agent. Their agent now knew their stuff, their budget, and their style.