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Agentic AI and hallucinations

Author

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  • Iyidogan, Engin
  • Ozkes, Ali I.

Abstract

We model a competitive market where AI agents buy answers from upstream generative models and resell them to users who differ in how much they value accuracy and in how much they fear hallucinations. Agents can privately exert effort for costly verification to lower hallucination risks. Since interactions halt in the event of a hallucination, the threat of losing future rents disciplines effort. A unique reputational equilibrium exists under nontrivial discounting. The equilibrium effort, and thus the price, increases with the share of users who have high accuracy concerns, implying that hallucination-sensitive sectors, such as law and medicine, endogenously lead to more serious verification efforts in agentic AI markets.

Suggested Citation

  • Iyidogan, Engin & Ozkes, Ali I., 2025. "Agentic AI and hallucinations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:255:y:2025:i:c:s016517652500357x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112520
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Susan C. Athey & Kevin A. Bryan & Joshua S. Gans, 2020. "The Allocation of Decision Authority to Human and Artificial Intelligence," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 80-84, May.
    2. Erik Brynjolfsson & Danielle Li & Lindsey Raymond, 2025. "Generative AI at Work," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 140(2), pages 889-942.
    3. Bohan Zhang & Jiaxuan Li & Ali Hortac{c}su & Xiaoyang Ye & Victor Chernozhukov & Angelo Ni & Edward W Huang, 2025. "Agentic Economic Modeling," Papers 2510.25743, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2026.
    4. Jonathan Levin, 2003. "Relational Incentive Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 835-857, June.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games

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