# PC-Agent: A Hierarchical Multi-Agent Collaboration Framework for Complex Task Automation on PC

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.14282 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14282/

## Key facts

- Cited by 40 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in GUI and mobile agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 15 of its 27 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Feb 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [GUI and mobile agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/gui-and-mobile-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Qwen2-VL: Enhancing Vision-Language Model's Perception of the World at Any Resolution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12191/) (2024)
- [LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.03326/) (2024)
- [InternVL: Scaling up Vision Foundation Models and Aligning for Generic Visual-Linguistic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14238/) (2023)
- [OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07972/) (2024)
- [CogAgent: A Visual Language Model for GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08914/) (2023)
- [mPLUG-Owl2: Revolutionizing Multi-modal Large Language Model with Modality Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04257/) (2023)
- [AppAgent: Multimodal Agents as Smartphone Users](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13771/) (2023)
- [A Real-World WebAgent with Planning, Long Context Understanding, and Program Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12856/) (2023)
- [Set-of-Mark Prompting Unleashes Extraordinary Visual Grounding in GPT-4V](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11441/) (2023)
- [Mobile-Agent: Autonomous Multi-Modal Mobile Device Agent with Visual Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.16158/) (2024)
- [Windows Agent Arena: Evaluating Multi-Modal OS Agents at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.08264/) (2024)
- [Agent S: An Open Agentic Framework that Uses Computers Like a Human](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08164/) (2024)
- [UFO: A UI-Focused Agent for Windows OS Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.07939/) (2024)
- [OSCAR: Operating System Control via State-Aware Reasoning and Re-Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18963/) (2024)
- [PC Agent: While You Sleep, AI Works -- A Cognitive Journey into Digital World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17589/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [Scaling Computer-Use Grounding via User Interface Decomposition and Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13227/) (2025)
- [ScaleCUA: Scaling Open-Source Computer Use Agents with Cross-Platform Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.15221/) (2025)
- [A Survey of Agentic Reasoning for Large Language Models: Towards Recursively Self-Improving and Collective Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.12538/) (2026)
- [Step-GUI Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15431/) (2025)
- [Towards Trustworthy GUI Agents: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.23434/) (2025)
- [MAGPIE: A benchmark for Multi-AGent contextual PrIvacy Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.15186/) (2025)
- [Look Before You Leap: A GUI-Critic-R1 Model for Pre-Operative Error Diagnosis in GUI Automation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.04614/) (2025)
- [A Survey on the Safety and Security Threats of Computer-Using Agents: JARVIS or Ultron?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.10924/) (2025)
- [AgentOCR: Reimagining Agent History via Optical Self-Compression](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.04786/) (2026)
- [OS-Symphony: A Holistic Framework for Robust and Generalist Computer-Using Agent](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.07779/) (2026)
- [Efficient Agent Training for Computer Use](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.13909/) (2025)
- [Trading-R1: Financial Trading with LLM Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.11420/) (2025)
- [Dyna-Think: Synergizing Reasoning, Acting, and World Model Simulation in AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.00320/) (2025)
- [Evolutionary Perspectives on the Evaluation of LLM-Based AI Agents: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.11102/) (2025)
- [Atomic-to-Compositional Generalization for Mobile Agents with A New Benchmark and Scheduling System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08972/) (2025)
- [ToolCUA: Towards Optimal GUI-Tool Path Orchestration for Computer Use Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.12481/) (2026)
- [InfiAgent: An Infinite-Horizon Framework for General-Purpose Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03204/) (2026)
- [AndroTMem: From Interaction Trajectories to Anchored Memory in Long-Horizon GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18429/) (2026)
- [Dyna-Mind: Learning to Simulate from Experience for Better AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09577/) (2025)
- [OpAgent: Operator Agent for Web Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.13559/) (2026)
- [MVISU-Bench: Benchmarking Mobile Agents for Real-World Tasks by Multi-App, Vague, Interactive, Single-App and Unethical Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09057/) (2025)
- [FineState-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Fine-Grained State Control in GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.09241/) (2025)
- [Recon-Act: A Self-Evolving Multi-Agent Browser-Use System via Web Reconnaissance, Tool Generation, and Task Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.21072/) (2025)
- [Rethinking KV Cache Eviction via a Unified Information-Theoretic Objective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.25975/) (2026)
- [FineState-Bench: Benchmarking State-Conditioned Grounding for Fine-grained GUI State Setting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.27974/) (2026)
- [Workflow-GYM: Towards Long-Horizon Evaluation of Computer-use Agentic tasks in Real-World Professional Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11042/) (2026)
- [Xiaomi-GUI-0 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31410/) (2026)
- [InfiAgent: Self-Evolving Pyramid Agent Framework for Infinite Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.22502/) (2025)
- [LiteGUI: Lightweight GUI Agents via Multi-Solution Guided Distillation and Dual-Level Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.07505/) (2026)
- [From Virtual Agents to Robot Teams: A Multi-Robot Framework Evaluation in High-Stakes Healthcare Context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.03546/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In the field of MLLM-based GUI agents, compared to smartphones, the PC scenario not only features a more complex interactive environment, but also involves more intricate intra- and inter-app workflows. To address these issues, we propose a hierarchical agent framework named PC-Agent. Specifically, from the perception perspective, we devise an Active Perception Module (APM) to overcome the inadequate abilities of current MLLMs in perceiving screenshot content. From the decision-making perspective, to handle complex user instructions and interdependent subtasks more effectively, we propose a hierarchical multi-agent collaboration architecture that decomposes decision-making processes into Instruction-Subtask-Action levels. Within this architecture, three agents (i.e., Manager, Progress and Decision) are set up for instruction decomposition, progress tracking and step-by-step decision-making respectively. Additionally, a Reflection agent is adopted to enable timely bottom-up error feedback and adjustment. We also introduce a new benchmark PC-Eval with 25 real-world complex instructions. Empirical results on PC-Eval show that our PC-Agent achieves a 32% absolute improvement of task success rate over previous state-of-the-art methods. The code is available at https://github.com/X-PLUG/MobileAgent/tree/main/PC-Agent.