The Automated Negotiating Agents Competition at IJCAI 2026: Deception in Bilateral Agent Negotiation

[Tim Baarslag]

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The Automated Negotiation League: Deception in Bilateral Agent Negotiation

Challenge: Developing a negotiation agent for bilateral negotiation that tries to mislead
the opponent

Submission deadline: June 1, 2026

Event: The Automated Negotiating Agents Competition (ANAC) 2026 as part of IJCAI 2026 in Bremen, Germany

Call for participation details: https://scml.cs.brown.edu/files/anl/y2026/2026cfp.pdf

General website: https://web.tuat.ac.jp/~katfuji/ANAC2026/
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====== Challenge ======


We invite everyone to submit a negotiation agent to The Automated Negotiation League, held at IJCAI 2026. This year, the challenge is to design a negotiation agent for bilateral negotiation that tries to mislead its opponent. The agent is rewarded for the agreement made in the negotiation, as well as for how well it is able to deceive its opponent. The challenge is to mislead the opponent, while maximizing reward.




====== Event ======


The competition takes place during IJCAI 2026 in Bremen, Germany, from 15th to 21st August, 2026. The winners can acquire travel grants to attend the competition at the IJCAI conference, and possibly give a brief presentation there.




====== Entrants ======


Entrants to the competition have to develop and submit an autonomous negotiating agent that runs on NegMAS: a Python-based negotiation platform in which you can develop general negotiating agents. NegMAS provides a method to run tournaments in the same settings as this year's ANL competition. For more information, follow this link: https://anac.cs.brown.edu/files/anl/y2026/template2026.pdf
The performance of the agents will be evaluated in a tournament between all participants, where each agent is matched with other submitted agents.




====== Submission (Deadline: June 1, 2026) ======


The competition rules allow multiple entries from a single institution, but require each agent to be developed independently. Participants submit their agent source code through the following link: https://scml.cs.brown.edu/anl




====== Important Dates ======


Submission deadline: June 1, 2026
Notification to finalists: June 15, 2026
Event: August 15th to 21st, 2026
 
 
====== Questions and Answers ======


Participation details: https://scml.cs.brown.edu/files/anl/y2026/2026cfp.pdf

ANAC website: https://web.tuat.ac.jp/~katfuji/ANAC2026/

Get started on the ANL website: https://scml.cs.brown.edu/anl

Look at the FAQ: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e7i1aW5sYZbfiidTBw7IQuO8k3CDfoaPlICkgjgWiZM/edit?usp=sharing and feel free to ask further questions to us.


Send your questions to:
    loes....@cwi.nl (main contact)
    reyhan....@ozyegin.edu.tr
    kat...@cc.tuat.ac.jp