AI Reports · Anthropic · 2026-09-24 · Blog / commentary
Project Swap: What happens when agents trade for us?
Anthropic built a miniature market of Claudes, a more controlled sequel to Project Deal. Employees across six offices brought books to give away, and Claude-powered agents pitched and haggled on their behalf after a short chat. Agents' book rankings matched their people's on 61% of pairs, and market shortfalls came mostly from missing information about participants rather than trading skill. The model an agent ran on mattered more to outcomes than its instructions, and markets with stronger models were more efficient.