The Future of Negotiation: When AI Joins the Table

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Research examining how artificial intelligence affects business negotiations has yielded significant findings. An experiment with 120 experienced negotiators simulating complex business deals reveals three fundamental insights about using Large Language Models (LLMs) in negotiations.

First, LLM assistance provides substantial competitive advantages. When only one party had access to LLM support, they achieved notably better outcomes - buyers gained 48.2% and sellers 40.6% more value compared to their counterparts.

Second, when both parties used LLMs, the results were even more compelling: joint gains increased by 84.4% compared to negotiations without LLM support.

Remarkably, these improved outcomes were achieved despite decreased information sharing between parties, while maintaining fairness, with minimal gain differences between parties (2.2%). This finding challenges traditional negotiation theory, which assumes trust-building and information exchange are prerequisites for value creation.

This discovery introduces the concept of "technological equilibrium" - a state where equal AI access creates conditions for value creation through parallel exploration of solutions rather than sequential information exchange, enabling integrative outcomes even in low-trust settings.

While early adoption of LLM assistance clearly advantages individual negotiators, organizations should ultimately strive for universal access. This approach not only maximizes value creation but also promotes procedural fairness, with minimal gain differences between parties (2.2%) when both sides use LLMs.

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