arXiv Computation and Language

"If I Had to Buy Just ONE: Galaxy S26 Ultra": Auditing AI-Generated Product Recommendations

arXiv AI
Sep 18

Characterizing Web Search by Conversational LLM Agents: From Search Decisions and Strategies to Results and Responses

The study examines how conversational LLM agents—specifically ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and DeepSeek—use Web search, combining real user interactions with controlled API experiments. It finds that agents differ in when they decide to search, how they craft queries, and which domains they favor, and that more frequent searching does not always improve answer quality. While most responses are grounded in search results, some claims are unsupported, raising attribution concerns.

By Mahsa Amani, Seungeon Lee, Abhisek Dash, Asmaa El Fraihi, Yunah Jang, Elisabeth Kirsten, Qinyuan Wu, Krishna P. Gummadi, Manish Gupta, Abhilasha Ravichander, Muhammad Bilal Zafar, Soumi Das
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 4

From Information to Delegation: Mapping Human-AI Financial Decision Making

arXiv:2608. 02100v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: As AI increasingly participates in human decision making, understanding how decision-making authority is distributed between humans and AI has become a fundamental behavioural question.

By Iman Munire Bilal, Yingcan Carol Wang, Ajan Raj, Filippo Giovagnini, Pranav Tewari, Yuwei Zhang, Mei-Chen Zoe Liou, Qamar Zaman
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 25

Who Owns the AI Recommendation? A Multi-Industry Empirical Map of Brand Category Ownership Across Large Language Models

The study examines how large language models (LLMs) like GPT‑5.2, Gemini 3 Flash, and Perplexity sonar‑pro recommend brands across five industries. Using 50 brands and 250 queries repeated five times, the authors measured brand inclusion, recommendation share, competitive vacuum, and co‑mention asymmetry, finding that most queries mention at least one brand and that vacuum prevalence remained stable between February and September 2026. The analysis shows strong cross‑date consistency in recommendation patterns and no emergent clustering of brand mentions, though co‑mention structures deviate from null expectations.

By Dmitrij \.Zatuchin
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