# From Multimodal LLMs to Generalist Embodied Agents: Methods and Lessons

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.08442 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.08442/

## Key facts

- Cited by 42 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and 3D vision-language models, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 79 of its 96 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2024.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Embodied and 3D vision-language models](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/embodied-and-3d-vision-language-models/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 79)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03744/) (2023)
- [Finetuned Language Models Are Zero-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.01652/) (2021)
- [Playing Atari with Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.5602/) (2013)
- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [MiniGPT-4: Enhancing Vision-Language Understanding with Advanced Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.10592/) (2023)
- [Making the V in VQA Matter: Elevating the Role of Image Understanding in Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00837/) (2016)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16291/) (2023)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.06817/) (2022)
- [WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.09332/) (2021)
- [Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12213/) (2024)
- [Offline Reinforcement Learning with Implicit Q-Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06169/) (2021)
- [Code as Policies: Language Model Programs for Embodied Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.07753/) (2022)
- [Meta-World: A Benchmark and Evaluation for Multi-Task and Meta Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.10897/) (2019)
- [Habitat: A Platform for Embodied AI Research](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.01201/) (2019)
- [OK-VQA: A Visual Question Answering Benchmark Requiring External Knowledge](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00067/) (2019)
- [Kosmos-2: Grounding Multimodal Large Language Models to the World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14824/) (2023)
- [mPLUG-Owl: Modularization Empowers Large Language Models with Multimodality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14178/) (2023)
- [Language Models as Zero-Shot Planners: Extracting Actionable Knowledge for Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.07207/) (2022)
- [Open X-Embodiment: Robotic Learning Datasets and RT-X Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08864/) (2023)
- [A Generalist Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.06175/) (2022)
- [Autoregressive Image Generation using Residual Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.01941/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 42)

- [π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.16054/) (2025)
- [EmbodiedBench: Comprehensive Benchmarking Multi-modal Large Language Models for Vision-Driven Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09560/) (2025)
- [ThinkAct: Vision-Language-Action Reasoning via Reinforced Visual Latent Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.16815/) (2025)
- [Knowledge Insulating Vision-Language-Action Models: Train Fast, Run Fast, Generalize Better](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23705/) (2025)
- [Galaxea Open-World Dataset and G0 Dual-System VLA Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.00576/) (2025)
- [RoboArena: Distributed Real-World Evaluation of Generalist Robot Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.18123/) (2025)
- [MEM: Multi-Scale Embodied Memory for Vision Language Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.03596/) (2026)
- [Training Strategies for Efficient Embodied Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.08243/) (2025)
- [Emergence of Human to Robot Transfer in Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.22414/) (2025)
- [BEAST: Efficient Tokenization of B-Splines Encoded Action Sequences for Imitation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.06072/) (2025)
- [From Specific-MLLMs to Omni-MLLMs: A Survey on MLLMs Aligned with Multi-modalities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11694/) (2024)
- [Grounding Multimodal LLMs to Embodied Agents that Ask for Help with Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00907/) (2025)
- [AssetOpsBench: Benchmarking AI Agents for Task Automation in Industrial Asset Operations and Maintenance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03828/) (2025)
- [PPTBench: Towards Holistic Evaluation of Large Language Models for PowerPoint Layout and Design Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.02624/) (2025)
- [From Indoor to Open World: Revealing the Spatial Reasoning Gap in MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.19683/) (2025)
- [BEAT: Visual Backdoor Attacks on VLM-based Embodied Agents via Contrastive Trigger Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.27623/) (2025)
- [Expanding LLM Agent Boundaries with Strategy-Guided Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.02045/) (2026)
- [Multimodal LLM-assisted Evolutionary Search for Programmatic Control Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05433/) (2025)
- [MAPS: Preserving Vision-Language Representations via Module-Wise Proximity Scheduling for Better Vision-Language-Action Generalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19878/) (2025)
- [ALOE: Action-Level Off-Policy Evaluation for Vision-Language-Action Model Post-Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12691/) (2026)
- [Cognitive Mismatch in Multimodal Large Language Models for Discrete Symbol Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18472/) (2026)
- [RoboAgent: Chaining Basic Capabilities for Embodied Task Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07774/) (2026)
- [OmniSAT: Compact Action Token, Faster Auto Regression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09667/) (2025)
- [CHORUS: Decentralized Multi-Embodiment Collaboration with One VLA Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.12352/) (2026)
- [Vesta: A Generalist Embodied Reasoning Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20905/) (2026)
- [ManiTaskGen: A Comprehensive Task Generator for Benchmarking and Improving Vision-Language Agents on Embodied Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.20726/) (2025)
- [OmniActor: A Generalist GUI and Embodied Agent for 2D&3D Worlds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.02322/) (2025)
- [Discover, Learn, and Reinforce: Scaling Vision-Language-Action Pretraining with Diverse RL-Generated Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.19528/) (2025)
- [Odysseus: Scaling VLMs to 100+ Turn Decision-Making in Games via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00347/) (2026)
- [MECoBench: A Systematic Study of Multimodal Agent Collaboration in Embodied Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31966/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We examine the capability of Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) to tackle diverse domains that extend beyond the traditional language and vision tasks these models are typically trained on. Specifically, our focus lies in areas such as Embodied AI, Games, UI Control, and Planning. To this end, we introduce a process of adapting an MLLM to a Generalist Embodied Agent (GEA). GEA is a single unified model capable of grounding itself across these varied domains through a multi-embodiment action tokenizer. GEA is trained with supervised learning on a large dataset of embodied experiences and with online RL in interactive simulators. We explore the data and algorithmic choices necessary to develop such a model. Our findings reveal the importance of training with cross-domain data and online RL for building generalist agents. The final GEA model achieves strong generalization performance to unseen tasks across diverse benchmarks compared to other generalist models and benchmark-specific approaches.