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This is a major development. Just a few months ago I remember reading about a similar AI program that was competitive in Diplomacy against people - but nobody was allowed to speak to eachother. I remember thinking that was a bit of a hack, so this is much more impressive.
Even so, I think it's undermined by Diplomacy being such a simple game. I'd like to see AI take on something a bit more complicated in the turn-based strategy genre. Civilization, Galactic Civilization, Endless Space... Any turn-based 4X game has way more complexity than Diplomacy. They have more opportunities for diplomacy and negotiation too. You have spies, subversion, random maps, imperfect knowledge, trade and the potential for economic warfare. I suppose the problem is that it's much more costly to train an AI on games with such a complicated engine - there's a reason Atari is the standard.
Haven't they already made extremely strong Starcraft and Dota AIs?
The SC and DotA AIs were a massive disappointment. I thought they'd push AI research forward by allowing agents to speculate about other agents with hidden intentions, really focus in on the fog-of-war problem. Instead, they just threw a lot of RL at the problem, achieved some technical success, declared victory and immediately left the field. Even the best DotA AI still couldn't handle cloaked enemies at all.
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