Claude handled the entire "negotiation and transaction," and Anthropic quietly "tested the waters" in e-commerce last Friday.

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AI is coming aggressively—is the next target the e-commerce industry?

A recent internal experiment by Anthropic shows that AI agents can now autonomously conduct negotiations and transactions in real market environments, giving outsiders a glimpse into the beginnings of an "agent economy."

The experiment, called "Project Deal," was quietly released by Anthropic last Friday. The company's AI model Claude acted on behalf of employees in a closed market to buy, sell, and negotiate prices, involving real funds. The results showed that Claude facilitated 186 transactions out of more than 500 listed items, with a total transaction amount exceeding $4,000.

After the announcement, eBay's stock closed down about 4.5% that day. Market observers directly linked the drop to the unveiling of "Project Deal," believing that the autonomous trading capabilities demonstrated in the experiment pose a potential threat to traditional e-commerce platforms that rely on manual matchmaking.

AI agents autonomously complete real transactions

According to a post by Anthropic on social platform X, the company set up an internal market based on Slack for employees in its San Francisco office and empowered Claude agents with negotiation roles for both buyers and sellers. Claude first interviewed 69 employees to understand their buying and selling intentions and personalized instructions, then proceeded independently with bargaining.

Anthropic operated four parallel markets to test differences in negotiation performance among various models. Results showed that model capability significantly influenced transaction outcomes—in a simulation between the Opus and Haiku models, Opus's negotiation results clearly outperformed Haiku's. Notably, employees surveyed did not perceive this difference.

Anthropic stated that this experiment aimed to present the early form of AI-to-AI business interactions, heralding the arrival of an "agent economy" where robots negotiate with each other and independently seek prices.

E-commerce stocks under pressure, market concerns spreading

After the release of "Project Deal," worries about AI technology disrupting traditional e-commerce models quickly intensified. Polymarket Money posted on social media, stating, "eBay's management is watching this development," along with relevant screenshots, triggering widespread sharing.

eBay's stock immediately dropped about 4.5% at the close of trading in New York that day. The impact of AI on the software industry had previously been evident, but the autonomous trading ability shown in this experiment is causing the market to re-evaluate the potential impact of AI on e-commerce platforms' business models.

It's noteworthy that Anthropic chose to quietly release this study report on Friday afternoon—when market attention was highly diverted due to nearly two months of the U.S.-Iran situation—yet the market reaction was still swift and direct.

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