# Integrating the Analytic Hierarchy Process with Large Language Models for Transparent Multi-Criteria Decision-Making

> Source: <https://www.machinebrief.com/news/integrating-the-analytic-hierarchy-process-with-large-langua-rg8d>
> Published: 2026-09-16 04:00:00+00:00

arXiv:2609.16779v1 Announce Type: new 
Abstract: LLMs are increasingly employed in a wide range of decision-making tasks. However, the opacity of their internal reasoning makes it difficult to validate or interpret their outputs, and the need for interpretability becomes especially critical in high-stakes settings. This study examines the decision-making capabilities of LLMs through the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a classical and widely used multicriteria decision-making framework. We construct a new annotated benchmark based on AHP and propose the first end-to-end approach that enables LLMs to perform the complete AHP workflow. Experiments in real-world decision problems in the legal and higher-education ranking domains show that our method significantly improves alignment with expert judgments.