mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

MultiTool-CoT: GPT-3 Can Use Multiple External Tools with Chain of Thought Prompting

arXiv 2305.16896 ↗First posted 26 May 2023cs.CL cs.AI cs.LGcited by 27

On the map: LLM reasoning → Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) have achieved impressive performance on various reasoning tasks. To further improve the performance, we propose MultiTool-CoT, a novel framework that leverages chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting to incorporate multiple external tools, such as a calculator and a knowledge retriever, during the reasoning process. We apply MultiTool-CoT to the Task 2 dataset of NumGLUE, which requires both numerical reasoning and domain-specific knowledge. The experiments show that our method significantly outperforms strong baselines and achieves state-of-the-art performance.

Key facts. Cited by 27 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Prompting and chain-of-thought reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 9 of its 12 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 May 2023.

Builds on

9 of 12 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2022Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Reasoners24 May
  2. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models28 Jan

Other references · 7

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  2. 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 9,743
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
  4. 2022OPT: Open Pre-trained Transformer Language Modelscited by 3,464
  5. 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
  6. 2022Solving Quantitative Reasoning Problems with Language Modelscited by 1,359
  7. 2022NumGLUE: A Suite of Fundamental yet Challenging Mathematical Reasoning Taskscited by 110

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 3; 2024: 11; 2025: 12; 2026: 1.

27 papers.

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  1. 2024Tool Learning with Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 221
  2. 2025Deep Research Agents: A Systematic Examination And Roadmapcited by 122
  3. 2025A Survey of Context Engineering for Large Language Modelscited by 120
  4. 2025Agentic Reasoning and Tool Integration for LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 107
  5. 2024Faithful Logical Reasoning via Symbolic Chain-of-Thoughtcited by 99
  6. 2025VerlTool: Towards Holistic Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Tool Usecited by 92
  7. 2024A Review of Prominent Paradigms for LLM-Based Agents: Tool Use (Including RAG), Planning, and Feedback Learningcited by 74
  8. 2024LLM With Tools: A Surveycited by 60
  9. 2024Beyond Chain-of-Thought: A Survey of Chain-of-X Paradigms for LLMscited by 48
  10. 2024DrugAgent: Automating AI-aided Drug Discovery Programming through LLM Multi-Agent Collaborationcited by 40
  11. 2023TCRA-LLM: Token Compression Retrieval Augmented Large Language Model for Inference Cost Reductioncited by 34
  12. 2023How Do Large Language Models Capture the Ever-changing World Knowledge? A Review of Recent Advancescited by 33
15 more
  1. 2025Process-Centric Analysis of Agentic Software Systemscited by 24
  2. 2025ToolScope: Enhancing LLM Agent Tool Use through Tool Merging and Context-Aware Filteringcited by 19
  3. 2025AdaptiVocab: Enhancing LLM Efficiency in Focused Domains through Lightweight Vocabulary Adaptationcited by 15
  4. 2025AskToAct: Enhancing LLMs Tool Use via Self-Correcting Clarificationcited by 12
  5. 2025Keyword search is all you need: Achieving RAG-Level Performance without vector databases using agentic tool usecited by 10
  6. 2025A Desideratum for Conversational Agents: Capabilities, Challenges, and Future Directionscited by 9
  7. 2024Can Tool-augmented Large Language Models be Aware of Incomplete Conditions?cited by 8
  8. 2024SoAy: A Solution-based LLM API-using Methodology for Academic Information Seekingcited by 7
  9. 2025GraphChain: Large Language Models for Large-scale Graph Analysis via Tool Chainingcited by 5
  10. 2024NesTools: A Dataset for Evaluating Nested Tool Learning Abilities of Large Language Modelscited by 4
  11. 2024Learning-From-Mistakes Prompting for Indigenous Language Translationcited by 2
  12. 2025GCPO: When Contrast Fails, Go Goldcited by 2
  13. 2024Multi-tool Integration Application for Math Reasoning Using Large Language Modelcited by 1
  14. 2023Word Definitions from Large Language Modelscited by 0
  15. 2026SyRHM: Symbolic-Language-Enhanced Reasoning with Associative Retrieval for Zero-shot Harmful Meme Detectioncited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2024ChainLM: Empowering Large Language Models with Improved Chain-of-Thought Prompting
  2. 2023Stress Testing Chain-of-Thought Prompting for Large Language Models
  3. 2022Towards Understanding Chain-of-Thought Prompting: An Empirical Study of What Matters
  4. 2024To CoT or not to CoT? Chain-of-thought helps mainly on math and symbolic reasoning
  5. 2023Generalizable Chain-of-Thought Prompting in Mixed-task Scenarios with Large Language Models
  6. 2022Automatic Chain of Thought Prompting in Large Language Models
  7. 2026Hierarchical Chain-of-Thought: Enhancing LLM Reasoning Performance and Efficiency
  8. 2024Unveiling the Statistical Foundations of Chain-of-Thought Prompting Methods