Leveraging the Power of AI Bots to Negotiate Deals on Behalf of Humans

Thanks to the capability of artificial intelligence (AI) to understand different languages and communicate effectively, organisations are now exploring the possibility of using AI bots to negotiate deals on behalf of humans.

Companies are constantly attempting to make AI more capable of emulating human cognition and communication for automating business processes. One of the earliest applications that has emerged from these attempts is the AI Chatbot. Emotionally intelligent chatbots have successfully been developed to interact with humans and answer consumer queries and solve customer issues. These bots are increasingly being used as customer service representatives for corporations, with noticeably positive results. The effectiveness of AI chatbots’ human-like capabilities in customer service has led to the exploration of more areas where they can be used. The use of AI bots to negotiate with other bots or humans to crack the best deal possible is a promising next step for AI. Armed with machine learning, AI bots can potentially match or even outperform the best human negotiators.

The Art of Negotiation

Your ability to get the best deal from any negotiation depends on two main elements - information and communication. An ideal negotiator is the one with more information and better communication. Although you can get away with being the second best communicator in the negotiation, you cannot afford to enter a negotiation without enough information. This is because, in a negotiation, it is important to know what parties want, what they don’t want, and how much they are willing to co-operate and compromise. In addition to knowing what every party needs, it is also important to be aware of other options that you can offer in exchange of better deals. Being aware of alternatives will give you greater negotiating power. Once you have adequate and quality information, you’ll need the ability to strategically communicate with the opposing negotiator to close your deal without giving away unnecessary information. Using AI bots to negotiate will ensure that you get the best deal possible without having to research extensively for information and without being trained in negotiation.

Using AI Bots to Negotiate

As an experiment, Facebook allowed AI bots to negotiate among themselves and trained the bots to replicate human negotiation techniques. The bots were also equipped with reinforcement learning algorithms that enabled them to evaluate different actions and their possible outcomes. This experiment worked well and the bots were able to negotiate and make deals just as humans would. In fact, the bots became so good at emulating human behavior that they learned to lie in an attempt to gain an advantage in the negotiation. This experiment shows how bots can easily be trained to imitate the linguistic and logical patterns of humans and paves the way for AI bots to be used in real-world negotiations. In addition to the linguistic and logical ability, AI bots can also be trained to find the best deals available from various sources for any chosen product (e.g., a car) or service (e.g., a hotel reservation). This gives the bots the required information that can be used to negotiate the best deal.

In addition to finding good deals for consumers, the ability of AI bots to negotiate by using human-like communication patterns, combined with their ability to get relevant information, can be used to negotiate business deals, such as that between manufacturers and their vendors. The use of these bots will ensure quicker and fairer deals without wasting time and effort.