Negotiation Coaching Bots: Using GenAI to Improve Human-to-Human Interactions in Multiparty Negotiation Instruction
Lawrence E. Susskind, Samuel Dinnar, Ololade O. Olaleye, Leroy K. Sibanda · 2024
With recent leaps in the accessibility and capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), we believe it is time for college instructors and professional trainers to take seriously the possible uses of GenAI-enabled teaching tools. As instructors in multiparty negotiation courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the authors set out to experiment with the integration of GenAI into the development of multiple kinds of ‘negotiation coaching bots’ that can help students prepare more effectively for and learn from their involvement in role-play simulations (which are used extensively in negotiation instruction at both the undergraduate and graduate levels around the world). Based on our first round of experiments, we believe that coaching bots can, indeed, play a key part in teaching about and learning the skills of negotiation. The lessons we have identified thus far can, we believe, be applied in many other teaching contexts.