Source Preference in the Wild: How LLM Agents Favor Items by Source, and How to Reduce It
As LLM agents decide on users' behalf which product to buy, which hotel to book, or which paper to cite, a preference for items from certain sources (the sites or services they come from) shapes what users receive and which sources are selected. We study source preference in end-to-end search with 12 agent models across three domains. Comparing items from different sources that satisfy the same requirements at the same position, we find that each model prefers some sources and avoids others in every domain, largely agreeing on which. This preference can outweigh how well items satisfy the request: an item satisfying one requirement fewer is selected about two-thirds of the time when it co...
| Authors | Jonghyun Song, Haewon Park, Jeonghoon Shim et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 2 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 2 October 2026 |
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