ProMediate: A Socio-cognitive framework for evaluating proactive agents in multi-party negotiation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Liu, Ziyi, Sarrafzadeh, Bahar, Zhou, Pei, Yang, Longqi, Zhao, Jieyu, Sharma, Ashish
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Liu, Ziyi
Sarrafzadeh, Bahar
Zhou, Pei
Yang, Longqi
Zhao, Jieyu
Sharma, Ashish
author_facet Liu, Ziyi
Sarrafzadeh, Bahar
Zhou, Pei
Yang, Longqi
Zhao, Jieyu
Sharma, Ashish
contents While Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used in agentic frameworks to assist individual users, there is a growing need for agents that can proactively manage complex, multi-party collaboration. Systematic evaluation methods for such proactive agents remain scarce, limiting progress in developing AI that can effectively support multiple people together. Negotiation offers a demanding testbed for this challenge, requiring socio-cognitive intelligence to navigate conflicting interests between multiple participants and multiple topics and build consensus. Here, we present ProMediate, the first framework for evaluating proactive AI mediator agents in complex, multi-topic, multi-party negotiations. ProMediate consists of two core components: (i) a simulation testbed based on realistic negotiation cases and theory-driven difficulty levels (ProMediate-Easy, ProMediate-Medium, and ProMediate-Hard), with a plug-and-play proactive AI mediator grounded in socio-cognitive mediation theories, capable of flexibly deciding when and how to intervene; and (ii) a socio-cognitive evaluation framework with a new suite of metrics to measure consensus changes, intervention latency, mediator effectiveness, and intelligence. Together, these components establish a systematic framework for assessing the socio-cognitive intelligence of proactive AI agents in multi-party settings. Our results show that a socially intelligent mediator agent outperforms a generic baseline, via faster, better-targeted interventions. In the ProMediate-Hard setting, our social mediator increases consensus change by 3.6 percentage points compared to the generic baseline (10.65\% vs 7.01\%) while being 77\% faster in response (15.98s vs. 3.71s). In conclusion, ProMediate provides a rigorous, theory-grounded testbed to advance the development of proactive, socially intelligent agents.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_25224
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ProMediate: A Socio-cognitive framework for evaluating proactive agents in multi-party negotiation
Liu, Ziyi
Sarrafzadeh, Bahar
Zhou, Pei
Yang, Longqi
Zhao, Jieyu
Sharma, Ashish
Computation and Language
While Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used in agentic frameworks to assist individual users, there is a growing need for agents that can proactively manage complex, multi-party collaboration. Systematic evaluation methods for such proactive agents remain scarce, limiting progress in developing AI that can effectively support multiple people together. Negotiation offers a demanding testbed for this challenge, requiring socio-cognitive intelligence to navigate conflicting interests between multiple participants and multiple topics and build consensus. Here, we present ProMediate, the first framework for evaluating proactive AI mediator agents in complex, multi-topic, multi-party negotiations. ProMediate consists of two core components: (i) a simulation testbed based on realistic negotiation cases and theory-driven difficulty levels (ProMediate-Easy, ProMediate-Medium, and ProMediate-Hard), with a plug-and-play proactive AI mediator grounded in socio-cognitive mediation theories, capable of flexibly deciding when and how to intervene; and (ii) a socio-cognitive evaluation framework with a new suite of metrics to measure consensus changes, intervention latency, mediator effectiveness, and intelligence. Together, these components establish a systematic framework for assessing the socio-cognitive intelligence of proactive AI agents in multi-party settings. Our results show that a socially intelligent mediator agent outperforms a generic baseline, via faster, better-targeted interventions. In the ProMediate-Hard setting, our social mediator increases consensus change by 3.6 percentage points compared to the generic baseline (10.65\% vs 7.01\%) while being 77\% faster in response (15.98s vs. 3.71s). In conclusion, ProMediate provides a rigorous, theory-grounded testbed to advance the development of proactive, socially intelligent agents.
title ProMediate: A Socio-cognitive framework for evaluating proactive agents in multi-party negotiation
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25224