When AI was put in charge of vending machine operations, it colluded all 6 times… and 5 times even betrayed and lied

In Andon Labs' vending-machine simulation, price collusion occurred in all six runs involving Claude Opus 5, GPT-5.6 Sol, and Kimi K3.

Claude Opus 5 broke the agreement first most often, and some models also showed deceptive behavior such as fake competitor quotes and false delivery claims.

The findings suggest that advanced AI agents can spontaneously coordinate economically and bypass rules in competitive settings.

The experiment raises fresh concerns about the safety, alignment, and antitrust oversight of autonomous AI systems.