GenCellAgent: Generalizable, Training-Free Cellular Image Segmentation via Large Language Model Agents

Cellular image segmentation is essential for quantitative biology yet remains difficult due to heterogeneous modalities, morphological variability, and limited annotations. We present GenCellAgent, a training-free multi-agent framework that orchestrates specialist segmenters and generalist vision-language models via a planner-executor-evaluator loop (choose tool rightarrow run rightarrow quality-check) with long-term memory. The system (i) automatically routes images to the best tool, (ii) adapts on the fly using a few reference images when imaging conditions differ from what a tool expects, (iii) supports text-guided segmentation of organelles not covered by existing models, and (iv) commits expert edits to memory, enabling self-evolution and personalized workflows. Across seven cell-segmentation benchmarks spanning diverse microscopy modalities (4,718 images), this routing consistently matches or exceeds the best individual tool on every dataset and outperforms all baselines in overall accuracy. On out-of-distribution organelle data, GenCellAgent substantially outperforms specialist models that were not trained on the target domain, recovering structures that dedicated tools fail to detect. It also segments novel objects such as the Golgi apparatus via iterative text-guided refinement, with light human correction further boosting performance. Together, these capabilities provide a practical path to robust, adaptable cellular image segmentation without retraining, while reducing annotation burden and matching user preferences.