One thing that I've noticed is that the AI seems to always pick the same specialization options in the tech tree. That makes things a bit bland and boring and makes it less worthwhile to attempt to horse-trade with everyone so that you have all (3) specializations.
A characteristic of lesser skilled players is that they make sub-optimal choices. They don't understand what things are worth and will undervalue / overvalue various choices. There is a lot of experimentation as a result and a lot of random choices.
When it comes to the specialization picks, lower-skilled AIs should be more likely to pick the 2nd or 3rd best choice for their circumstances. So after it values the three specializations, it might randomly fudge those valuations by +/- 50% before picking.