Automating Content Analysis With Multiple LLM Agents: Impacts of Agent Attributes and Human–AI Collaboration

Xinyan Zhao, Chengshuai Zhao, Mordecai Mengesteab, Chau-Wai Wong, Mengqi Zhan, Zhen Tan, Tianlong Chen, Hussman School of Journalism and Media, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Arizona State University, Independent Researcher, NC State University, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, NC State University, Department of Communication, University of Texas at Arlington, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill

Social Science Computer Review

Published online on July 03, 2026

Abstract

Social Science Computer Review, Ahead of Print.
Emerging research in computational social science has applied LLMs to automate content analysis, often by prompting a single model to act as a human coder. While a single LLM may suffice for a few manifest variables, it still falls short on diverse latent ...