# AdaSwitch: Adaptive Switching between Small and Large Agents for Effective Cloud-Local Collaborative Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.13181 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13181/

## Key facts

- Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning for agents, planning and code, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 19 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Oct 2024.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Reasoning for agents, planning and code](https://mlsanity.com/lr/reasoning-for-agents-planning-and-code/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/agents/general-llm-agent-frameworks-and-benchmarks/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [RoBERTa: A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11692/) (2019)
- [Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14168/) (2021)
- [HotpotQA: A Dataset for Diverse, Explainable Multi-hop Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09600/) (2018)
- [GPTQ: Accurate Post-Training Quantization for Generative Pre-trained Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.17323/) (2022)
- [Can LLMs Express Their Uncertainty? An Empirical Evaluation of Confidence Elicitation in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13063/) (2023)
- [Are NLP Models really able to Solve Simple Math Word Problems?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07191/) (2021)
- [Solving General Arithmetic Word Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1608.01413/) (2016)
- [A Diverse Corpus for Evaluating and Developing English Math Word Problem Solvers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.15772/) (2021)
- [SwiftSage: A Generative Agent with Fast and Slow Thinking for Complex Interactive Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17390/) (2023)
- [Learning From Mistakes Makes LLM Better Reasoner](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.20689/) (2023)
- [Small LLMs Are Weak Tool Learners: A Multi-LLM Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.07324/) (2024)
- [Corex: Pushing the Boundaries of Complex Reasoning through Multi-Model Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.00280/) (2023)
- [Can LLMs Learn from Previous Mistakes? Investigating LLMs' Errors to Boost for Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20046/) (2024)
- [MixKD: Towards Efficient Distillation of Large-scale Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00593/) (2020)
- [In-Context Principle Learning from Mistakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.05403/) (2024)
- [Failures Pave the Way: Enhancing Large Language Models through Tuning-free Rule Accumulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15746/) (2023)
- [Can We Trust LLMs? Mitigate Overconfidence Bias in LLMs through Knowledge Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.16856/) (2024)
- [Democratizing Reasoning Ability: Tailored Learning from Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.13332/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [A Survey on the Optimization of Large Language Model-based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.12434/) (2025)
- [Multi-Agent Autonomous Driving Systems with Large Language Models: A Survey of Recent Advances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16804/) (2025)
- [RelayLLM: Efficient Reasoning via Collaborative Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.05167/) (2026)
- [Reasoning Can Be Restored by Correcting a Few Decision Tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16874/) (2026)
- [Ask Without Telling: Local SLMs Consult Cloud LLMs Without Revealing Task Intent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.32642/) (2026)
- [Empowering Edge Agents: A Systematic Analysis of Edge-Cloud Collaboration in LLM Agent Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17816/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Recent advancements in large language models (LLMs) have been remarkable. Users face a choice between using cloud-based LLMs for generation quality and deploying local-based LLMs for lower computational cost. The former option is typically costly and inefficient, while the latter usually fails to deliver satisfactory performance for reasoning steps requiring deliberate thought processes. In this work, we propose a novel LLM utilization paradigm that facilitates the collaborative operation of large cloud-based LLMs and smaller local-deployed LLMs. Our framework comprises two primary modules: the local agent instantiated with a relatively smaller LLM, handling less complex reasoning steps, and the cloud agent equipped with a larger LLM, managing more intricate reasoning steps. This collaborative processing is enabled through an adaptive mechanism where the local agent introspectively identifies errors and proactively seeks assistance from the cloud agent, thereby effectively integrating the strengths of both locally-deployed and cloud-based LLMs, resulting in significant enhancements in task completion performance and efficiency. We evaluate AdaSwitch across 7 benchmarks, ranging from mathematical reasoning and complex question answering, using various types of LLMs to instantiate the local and cloud agents. The empirical results show that AdaSwitch effectively improves the performance of the local agent, and sometimes achieves competitive results compared to the cloud agent while utilizing much less computational overhead.