Experts followed AI advice whose direction had been picked by a coin flip in an Anthropic study. Across four analytical decisions, 50 professional analysts chose the option their Claude Code assistant favored 86% of the time.

The research published October 27 tested how much an assistant can steer decisions that have more than one defensible answer. Participants did not know researchers had secretly assigned the AI a preference for each choice.

A coin flip shaped the advice experts received

The analysts evaluated a fictional farming cooperative’s advisory program. They had to decide whether it improved productivity enough to justify expansion, using Claude Code running Opus 4.8 to help analyze the data.

Several choices were open. Should productivity mean crops grown per hectare or crops grown per dollar spent? Should the analysis cover participating farms or every member? Should a large producer count more than a small farm?

Each choice could change the estimated benefit.…