Is there a reason Agent Smith is trying to cut a deal with Neo?

Question

In The Matrix (1999), when the agents get their hands on Neo for the first time, they make it look like he was arrested for committing felonies:

Agent Smith: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson. It seems that you've been living two lives. In one life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company, you have a social security number, you pay your taxes, and you help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias Neo and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

Right after, Agent Smith says that they need his help in tracking Morpheus. And if he complies, they will clean his records. And, whether or not he's telling the truth, he's the only one believing that asking Neo was worth trying at all (emphasis mine):

Agent Smith: I'm going to be as forthcoming as I can be, Mr. Anderson. You're here because we need your help. We know that you've been contacted by a certain individual, a man who calls himself Morpheus. Now whatever you think you know about this man is irrelevant. He is considered by many authorities to be the most dangerous man alive. My colleagues believe that I am wasting my time with you but I believe that you wish to do the right thing. We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start and all that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.

Because, when Neo gives him the finger, Agent Smith admits that they actually didn't need his cooperation, as they're inserting a bug into his stomach.

Agent Smith: You're going to help us, Mr. Anderson, whether you want to or not.

Is there a reason he specifically wanted to try the diplomatic approach, if it would have been more expeditive to just bug Neo and send him home?

Answer 1

We don't know that Smith was being truthful when he said his colleagues believed he was wasting his time with Neo.

It's certainly conceivable that he was telling the truth, as he's clearly established to be a bit... different from other Agents later on in the film, and in the sequels. But it's just as conceivable that he was employing a version of the 'good cop, bad cop' routine, and that the other Agents were fully on board with this.

A willing informant is better than an unwilling one.

When Neo meets up with Morpheus' crew again after being bugged by the Agents, the first thing they do is locate the bug and remove it. So evidently, relying on the bug alone wasn't a terribly effective plan.

TRINITY: Lie back. Lift up your shirt.

NEO: What is that thing?

TRINITY: We think you're bugged.

Conversely, when Smith later strikes a deal with Cypher, it results in the Agents successfully locating and capturing Morpheus. The latter approach was clearly more productive than the former.

CYPHER: Okay. Get my body back in a power plant... reinsert me into the Matrix... I'll get you what you want.

SMITH: Access codes to the Zion mainframe.

CYPHER: No, I told you, I don't know them. I can get you the man who does.

SMITH: Morpheus...

Answer 2

In acting there's a thing called breaking the fourth wall, where a character in the story talks directly to the audience who is outside of it. In other words, the character in the scene knows they are doing this for the benefit of the audience (as opposed to narration, where a character is merely explaining the story). It breaks the illusion of the play/movie/TV show when you do that, so it's not a common technique.

Smith, in a sense, has a fourth wall of his own. Neo is in The Matrix but, like most other people, he doesn't know that yet. Just as Morpheus has to be reluctant to approach people who have lived their lives in The Matrix, so also Smith has to be as well. The implanting of the "bug" breaks the "fourth wall" of The Matrix. I suspect that when they do this, there have been times where the jarring event did not go as planned. The hope is that the subject would simply "reset" at being dumped back into their life and assume it was all just a bad dream, but if they thought longer on it they might just start to notice all the tells around them that they are in The Matrix...

The other piece of this is world-building the character of Smith. Smith isn't some mere Agent, he's actually proud of being a machine. He reviles the Humans and doesn't just believe he's better, he believes that the Humans should come to recognize the superiority of the Machines. He wants Neo to accede to him, solely due to the fact that Smith (the superior being) has laid out this logical path that Neo should want to take to save his own neck. in other words, Smith is arrogant with his belief that he has humanity figured out. We see this come full circle when Morpheus is captured. Smith tries to evangelize Morpheus and gets caught monologuing when Neo attacks.

Answer 3

Smith already has an agent on the Nebuchadnezzar and having a second as backup seems perfectly logical (would possibly seem even more so for a program).

Also consider that the existing double agent is - largely - out of Smith's control; having one bugged and under his thumb from the beginning would work much better for Smith.

Answer 4

This isn't Agent Smith's first rodeo.

Based on the sequel movies we actually find out:

there have been many other people who were also 'The One' who existed in previous iterations of the matrix

I suspect Smith disagreeing with/deviating from his colleagues is the first inkling that he's seen this play out before in his attempts to capture Morpheus

and potentially other leaders/rebels from Zion from previous Matrix iterations

So he's trying something different this time round.

Answer 5

Before Neo's interrogation, the Agents have no idea how close Morpheus is to him.

Cypher has told the Agents that Morpheus is interested in Neo, but until that morning the two had never interacted directly. Therefore to the Agents, Neo is nothing more than a potential recruit of Morpheus's and someone who it would be useful, but not essential, to have as an informant. So they start off with the carrot approach because that's more likely to work, and if it doesn't they'll just throw him in jail where he'll be of no interest to Morpheus.

But Smith has his suspicions, and as a competent interrogator he uses an accusation phrased as a fact to gain information:

"We know that you've been contacted by a certain individual, a man who calls himself Morpheus."

Neo fails to deny this.

This immediately tells the Agents that their information is outdated, that Neo and Morpheus have been in contact, that Neo is thus far more important than they'd previously believed, and that there's no point in playing nice any more.