Interests before positions
The system separates stated demands from the interests they are meant to protect. That gives agents room to generate or compare structures without treating the loudest opening position as the actual decision objective.
APPLICATIONS · NEGOTIATION & DEAL GOVERNANCE
Agents can structure the deal without becoming the principal.
Decision support for contract negotiations, commercial disputes and consequential agreements where interests, alternatives, evidence, approvals and implementation risk need a durable record.
OVERVIEW
Negotiation is a decision system before it is a drafting exercise.
Mediator applies an external negotiation reference framework beneath AVSFT governance: identify interests on both sides, compare alternatives, test feasible negotiated outcomes, account for the cost of negotiating and estimate implementation or enforcement probability. Agentic systems can organize those states, surface principal-agent tension and preserve contrary evidence, while authority to accept, sign or execute remains with the authorized principal.
Alternatives and walk-away state
Each side’s credible alternative to agreement is recorded before an offer is treated as attractive. A negotiation package should show what happens if no agreement is reached, what assumptions support that alternative and what new fact would change the comparison.
Feasible negotiated outcomes
Agents can compare packages that may outperform the alternatives for both sides, including non-price terms, sequencing, contingent commitments and implementation conditions. Candidate structures remain proposals until the authorized principal approves them.
Negotiation cost
Time, money, reputation, precedent, disclosure risk, distraction and opportunity cost belong in the decision record. Continuing to negotiate is not free merely because no contract has been signed yet.
Implementation probability
A favorable paper outcome is weak if performance, enforcement or internal adoption is unlikely. The system records dependencies, obligations, owners, dates and verification conditions so implementation risk is evaluated before acceptance.
Principal-agent tension
An agent, adviser or negotiator can have incentives that differ from the principal. Mediator keeps recommendations, evidence, approvals and binding authority separate so persuasive process does not silently become delegated commitment authority.
Independent challenge
Important negotiations benefit from outside advice, a contrary case and an explicit reversal fact: the evidence that would make the current recommendation wrong. That challenge state can be recorded and revisited instead of disappearing after the meeting.
Approval and execution boundary
Drafting, analysis, redlining and recommendation can be agent-assisted. Acceptance, signature, funds movement, production deployment or another binding act remains separately authorized and receipted under the governing role and agreement.
PROOF
Decision support is not delegated signature authority.
The underlying research reference is Robert H. Mnookin’s negotiation framework as summarized through Harvard Program on Negotiation material. Mediator promotes only transferable decision mechanics—interests, alternatives, feasible outcomes, negotiation cost, implementation probability, principal-agent tension, independent advice and reversal facts—beneath current AVSFT authority law.