Simulating population compliance with pandemic interventions using large language models

Effective pandemic response requires accurate modeling of population compliance with non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), yet most epidemic models treat behavioral change as fixed scenarios rather than an emergent process. Here, we test whether large language model (LLM)-based agents can generate individualized behavioral responses to time-varying NPIs and disease risk. We instantiate demographically representative agents in three U.S. cities (Boston, Denver, San Antonio) and condition them on evolving outbreak conditions and policies during the early COVID-19 pandemic, without fitting to observed mobility data. Across three frontier LLMs and their ensemble, agents generate zero-shot mobility changes across restaurants, retail, and entertainment venues, benchmarked against cellphone-derived foot-traffic records. The simulations recover average mobility trends across cities and venue types but exhibit overly narrow within-city variation. The three LLMs display distinct biases, while an ensemble approach improves robustness and overall performance. These findings establish LLM agents as a promising framework for modeling adherence to NPIs and highlight the need for further fine-tuning and empirical validation before they can support policy analysis.