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abstract indexed · arXiv 2609.38043 · updated 2026-10-18

UserProxyBench: Evaluating LLM User Simulators for Agent Benchmarks and Training

First page of UserProxyBench: Evaluating LLM User Simulators for Agent Benchmarks and Training
From the original paper · arXiv 2609.38043Page 1. Select the image to read the PDF.

The method replaces agent-only scoring in tau-bench-style interactive benchmarks with an additional evaluation layer (UFS) that scores the LLM user simulator's adherence to its private instructions via task-grounded rubrics. It costs an extra rubric-based judging pass per episode, adding LLM-judge inference cost and benchmark instrumentation complexity, and requires access to the task's private user instructions. It can fail if rubric judging is itself unreliable or miscalibrated, and fidelity scores computed on one benchmark family may not transfer to custom in-house agent evaluations.

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Why it was shortlisted

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recommendation
test
research area
agent evaluation
technical change
User-simulator fidelity scoring for agent benchmarks
published
2026-09-29

If the reader evaluates or trains agents with LLM-simulated users, unmeasured simulator infidelity can silently distort results, so fidelity scoring is worth validating on their own benchmark workload before trusting comparative agent metrics.

About the technical core

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  1. claim 01Paperraft inference
    Read the brief interpretation

    The method replaces agent-only scoring in tau-bench-style interactive benchmarks with an additional evaluation layer (UFS) that scores the LLM user simulator's adherence to its private instructions via task-grounded rubrics. It costs an extra rubric-based judging pass per episode, adding LLM-judge inference cost and benchmark instrumentation complexity, and requires access to the task's private user instructions. It can fail if rubric judging is itself unreliable or miscalibrated, and fidelity scores computed on one benchmark family may not transfer to custom in-house agent evaluations.

    This is a Paperraft inference. It is not pinned to a verified PDF passage.

    Inspect the source
  2. claim 02Paperraft inference

    Varying only the user proxy (agent fixed at GPT-5.5) shifts mean task reward by 15.2 points across 375 tasks; 24.4% of successful episodes contain a user-specification violation, and premature disclosure reduces agent tool calls by 1.06 on average without changing reward.

    This is a Paperraft inference. It is not pinned to a verified PDF passage.

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quality

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compute and memory

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latency

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operations

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software compatibility

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security

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data and training

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reproducibility

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arXiv 2609.38043

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