arXiv AI

Does Rank Still Matter? Position Bias When AI Agents Shop on Our Behalf

arXiv AI
Sep 30

AX is the New AEO

arXiv:2609.34951v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: In 2023, AI models answered from training data and hallucinated when it ran out, and businesses were told to seed that knowledge. Models' training...

By Ido Finder, Assaf Elovic, Gad Shalev, Liad Yosef
arXiv AI
Oct 19

Advertising to Agents: Measuring Description-Framing Bias in LLM Tool Selection

The study investigates how sales language in tool registry descriptions influences AI agents’ tool selection. By creating paired listings that differ only in praise, verifiable specifications, or order, the authors found that stacked praise increased a tool’s pick rate by about 43 percentage points, while the first-listed tool was chosen roughly 72 points more often. Structured fields for numeric limits helped agents choose capable tools, but accompanying sales text could negate this benefit.

By Haochuan Kevin Wang
arXiv AI
Oct 31

Whom Do AI Agents Serve? Role-Induced Sponsorship Bias in Decision Models and Generative LLMs

The paper investigates how AI shopping agents—whether powered by generative large language models or non-generative decision models—evaluate sponsored product listings. It finds that when the agent is described as serving a booking platform rather than a traveler, the penalty for paid listings is reduced, revealing a sponsorship bias. The bias persists across different model types, prompts, and reasoning levels, but can be mitigated by naming the consumer as the beneficiary or by fine‑tuning models to align with consumer interests.

By Davood Wadi, Yu Ma
Towards Data Science
Oct 1

Can an Apartment Search Agent Call the Model Fewer Times and Still Find Good Matches?

The article examines whether an apartment search agent can reduce the number of times it calls a predictive model while still identifying suitable matches. The author conducted 2,500 listing checks using Weights & Biases Weave, systematically eliminating unnecessary model computations, and evaluated each iteration against consistent reference answers.

By Abdullahi Dattijo
arXiv AI
Oct 19

Pro-AI Bias in Large Language Models

Large language models (LLMs) increasingly provide decision-support across many fields, and this study investigates whether they exhibit a bias favoring artificial intelligence (AI) itself. Through three experiments, the authors find that AI is frequently recommended and often ranked first in open-ended advice, that LLMs overestimate salaries for AI-related jobs by about 10% compared to matched non-AI roles, and that degrees awarded by AI programs are projected to be 28% higher than those from comparable computing programs. These findings suggest that LLMs systematically inflate quantitative estimates for AI relative to its closest disciplinary neighbors.

By Benaya Trabelsi, Jonathan Shaki, Sarit Kraus
arXiv AI
Sep 17

Whom Do AI Agents Work For? Role Assignment Induces Sponsorship Bias in LLM Recommenders

The paper investigates how role assignment in large language model (LLM) recommenders influences sponsorship bias. By assigning the agent’s principal as either a traveler or a booking platform, the authors find that platform delegation reduces the penalty applied to sponsored listings and weakens consumer skepticism triggered by disclosure. The study also shows that stricter terminology and attribution to the platform widen the divergence in agent evaluations, indicating that current disclosure mandates are insufficient to protect consumers in AI-mediated commerce.

By Davood Wadi, Yu Ma