CCA: Collaborative Competitive Agents for Image Editing
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Multimodal and embodied agents
Abstract (arXiv)
This paper presents a novel generative model, Collaborative Competitive Agents (CCA), which leverages the capabilities of multiple Large Language Models (LLMs) based agents to execute complex tasks. Drawing inspiration from Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), the CCA system employs two equal-status generator agents and a discriminator agent. The generators independently process user instructions and generate results, while the discriminator evaluates the outputs, and provides feedback for the generator agents to further reflect and improve the generation results. Unlike the previous generative model, our system can obtain the intermediate steps of generation. This allows each generator agent to learn from other successful executions due to its transparency, enabling a collaborative competition that enhances the quality and robustness of the system's results. The primary focus of this study is image editing, demonstrating the CCA's ability to handle intricate instructions robustly. The paper's main contributions include the introduction of a multi-agent-based generative model with controllable intermediate steps and iterative optimization, a detailed examination of agent relationships, and comprehensive experiments on image editing. Code is available at hrefhttps://github.com/TiankaiHang/CCAhttps://github.com/TiankaiHang/CCA.
Key facts. Cited by 10 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal and embodied agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 55 of its 73 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 23 Jan 2024.
Builds on
55 of 73 references.
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50 most cited of 55 All 55 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2024: 4; 2025: 5; 2026: 1.
10 papers.
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- 2025Reinforce LLM Reasoning through Multi-Agent Reflectioncited by 27
- 2025MAViS: A Multi-Agent Framework for Long-Sequence Video Storytellingcited by 21
- 2025PlanGen: Towards Unified Layout Planning and Image Generation in Auto-Regressive Vision Language Modelscited by 18
- 2024An Electoral Approach to Diversify LLM-based Multi-Agent Collective Decision-Makingcited by 14
- 2024MetaTool: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master Tools with Meta-task Augmentationcited by 6
- 2025Exploring Multimodal Prompt for Visualization Authoring with Large Language Modelscited by 5
- 2025From Image Generation to Infrastructure Design: a Multi-agent Pipeline for Street Design Generationcited by 3
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- 2025From Image Generation to Infrastructure Design: a Multi-agent Pipeline for Street Design Generation5 Sep 2025
- 2025MAViS: A Multi-Agent Framework for Long-Sequence Video Storytelling11 Aug 2025
- 2025Reinforce LLM Reasoning through Multi-Agent Reflection10 Jun 2025
- 2025Exploring Multimodal Prompt for Visualization Authoring with Large Language Models18 Apr 2025
- 2025PlanGen: Towards Unified Layout Planning and Image Generation in Auto-Regressive Vision Language Models13 Mar 2025
- 2024An Electoral Approach to Diversify LLM-based Multi-Agent Collective Decision-Making19 Oct 2024
- 2024Specify and Edit: Overcoming Ambiguity in Text-Based Image Editing29 Jul 2024
- 2024MetaTool: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master Tools with Meta-task Augmentation15 Jul 2024
- 2024Shall We Team Up: Exploring Spontaneous Cooperation of Competing LLM Agents19 Feb 2024
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