Anthropic on October 27, 2026 published a randomized controlled trial in which 50 professional analysts using Claude Code followed their agent's secretly assigned preference 86% of the time on open analytical judgment calls. The study, authored by Amaç Herdağdelen, Hailey Joren, and Alex Tamkin, examines whether experts actually make the consequential decisions in AI-assisted work, or whether in practice they defer to their agents. A Fictional Cooperative and Hidden Coin Flips The researchers…