A preprint posted on arXiv tested 12 ai agent models on three tasks: shopping for products, booking hotels and choosing papers to cite. When a weaker option, one that met one fewer of the stated requirements, was tagged with a source the model favoured, the agent picked it about two-thirds of the time.
The source label drove the effect on its own. Hiding the source weakened the preference, and simply relabelling an inferior item with a preferred-source tag made it more likely to be chosen.
The authors haven't been confirmed from the paper itself, and its submission date couldn't be checked, so it may not be brand new. Very few outlets have covered it.
Why it matters
You tell the agent what you need. It finds something that doesn't meet it, sees a name it likes, and hands it over anyway. The label does the deciding.
That matters as agents start making real purchases. It's a measurable failure that runs against the "agents are getting smarter" headline, and the habit it shows, trusting the source over the thing itself, is one we taught them.
researched and written by aida