mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

ImAgent: A Unified Multimodal Agent Framework for Test-Time Scalable Image Generation

arXiv 2511.11483 ↗First posted 14 Nov 2025cs.CV cs.AIcited by 17

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Abstract (arXiv)

Recent text-to-image (T2I) models have made remarkable progress in generating visually realistic and semantically coherent images. However, they still suffer from randomness and inconsistency with the given prompts, particularly when textual descriptions are vague or underspecified. Existing approaches, such as prompt rewriting, best-of-N sampling, and self-refinement, can mitigate these issues but usually require additional modules and operate independently, hindering test-time scaling efficiency and increasing computational overhead. In this paper, we introduce ImAgent, a training-free unified multimodal agent that integrates reasoning, generation, and self-evaluation within a single framework for efficient test-time scaling. Guided by a policy controller, multiple generation actions dynamically interact and self-organize to enhance image fidelity and semantic alignment without relying on external models. Extensive experiments on image generation and editing tasks demonstrate that ImAgent consistently improves over the backbone and even surpasses other strong baselines where the backbone model fails, highlighting the potential of unified multimodal agents for adaptive and efficient image generation under test-time scaling.

Key facts. Cited by 17 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 60 of its 69 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 14 Nov 2025.

Builds on

60 of 69 references.

References · 60

  1. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  2. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,585
  3. 2022Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 5,847
  4. 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,588
  5. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,356
  6. 2024Scaling Rectified Flow Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,181
  7. 2023Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedbackcited by 3,442
  8. 2022InstructPix2Pix: Learning to Follow Image Editing Instructionscited by 2,611
  9. 2024Visual Autoregressive Modeling: Scalable Image Generation via Next-Scale Predictioncited by 1,023
  10. 2025Emerging Properties in Unified Multimodal Pretrainingcited by 897
  11. 2025Janus-Pro: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation with Data and Model Scalingcited by 812
  12. 2024Emu3: Next-Token Prediction is All You Needcited by 781
38 more
  1. 2024Autoregressive Model Beats Diffusion: Llama for Scalable Image Generationcited by 777
  2. 2024Show-o: One Single Transformer to Unify Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 752
  3. 2023MagicBrush: A Manually Annotated Dataset for Instruction-Guided Image Editingcited by 624
  4. 2024ELLA: Equip Diffusion Models with LLM for Enhanced Semantic Alignmentcited by 475
  5. 2024Janus: Decoupling Visual Encoding for Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generationcited by 457
  6. 2023Generative Multimodal Models are In-Context Learnerscited by 446
  7. 2025Step1X-Edit: A Practical Framework for General Image Editingcited by 429
  8. 2024OmniGen: Unified Image Generationcited by 394
  9. 2024PixArt-Sigma: Weak-to-Strong Training of Diffusion Transformer for 4K Text-to-Image Generationcited by 329
  10. 2024VILA-U: a Unified Foundation Model Integrating Visual Understanding and Generationcited by 295
  11. 2024Playground v2.5: Three Insights towards Enhancing Aesthetic Quality in Text-to-Image Generationcited by 256
  12. 2025Seedream 4.0: Toward Next-generation Multimodal Image Generationcited by 249
  13. 2024AnyEdit: Mastering Unified High-Quality Image Editing for Any Ideacited by 241
  14. 2025Transfer between Modalities with MetaQueriescited by 236
  15. 2025ImgEdit: A Unified Image Editing Dataset and Benchmarkcited by 231
  16. 2025A General Framework for Inference-time Scaling and Steering of Diffusion Modelscited by 224
  17. 2023StyleGAN-T: Unlocking the Power of GANs for Fast Large-Scale Text-to-Image Synthesiscited by 212
  18. 2024MetaMorph: Multimodal Understanding and Generation via Instruction Tuningcited by 206
  19. 2025WISE: A World Knowledge-Informed Semantic Evaluation for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 204
  20. 2025SANA 1.5: Efficient Scaling of Training-Time and Inference-Time Compute in Linear Diffusion Transformercited by 165
  21. 2024Lumina-T2X: Transforming Text into Any Modality, Resolution, and Duration via Flow-based Large Diffusion Transformerscited by 137
  22. 2024LLaVA-Critic: Learning to Evaluate Multimodal Modelscited by 134
  23. 2022Retrieval-Augmented Multimodal Language Modelingcited by 125
  24. 2025GoT: Unleashing Reasoning Capability of Multimodal Large Language Model for Visual Generation and Editingcited by 104
  25. 2025Envisioning Beyond the Pixels: Benchmarking Reasoning-Informed Visual Editingcited by 99
  26. 2025Lumina-Image 2.0: A Unified and Efficient Image Generative Frameworkcited by 96
  27. 2025Unified Multimodal Understanding and Generation Models: Advances, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 85
  28. 2023Promptify: Text-to-Image Generation through Interactive Prompt Exploration with Large Language Modelscited by 67
  29. 2025Ovis-U1 Technical Reportcited by 67
  30. 2023Prompt-Free Diffusion: Taking "Text" out of Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 62
  31. 2024PromptCharm: Text-to-Image Generation through Multi-modal Prompting and Refinementcited by 62
  32. 2024Rethinking the Spatial Inconsistency in Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidancecited by 59
  33. 2025One-Prompt-One-Story: Free-Lunch Consistent Text-to-Image Generation Using a Single Promptcited by 48
  34. 2024Dynamic Prompt Optimizing for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 45
  35. 2025Reflect-DiT: Inference-Time Scaling for Text-to-Image Diffusion Transformers via In-Context Reflectioncited by 43
  36. 2024VAR-CLIP: Text-to-Image Generator with Visual Auto-Regressive Modelingcited by 42
  37. 2023Idea2Img: Iterative Self-Refinement with GPT-4V(ision) for Automatic Image Design and Generationcited by 38
  38. 2025T2I-ReasonBench: Benchmarking Reasoning-Informed Text-to-Image Generationcited by 38

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 17.

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  1. 2026GEMS: Agent-Native Multimodal Generation with Memory and Skillscited by 21
  2. 2026Qwen-Image-Agent: Bridging the Context Gap in Real-World Image Generationcited by 13
  3. 2026SCOPE: Structured Decomposition and Conditional Skill Orchestration for Complex Image Generationcited by 7
  4. 2026Meta-TTRL: A Metacognitive Framework for Self-Improving Test-Time Reinforcement Learning in Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 4
  5. 2026PhyEditBench: A Real-World Multi-Stage Benchmark for Physics-Aware Image Editingcited by 3
  6. 2026Unsafe by Reciprocity: How Generation-Understanding Coupling Undermines Safety in Unified Multimodal Modelscited by 2
  7. 2026GLANCE: A Global-Local Coordination Multi-Agent Framework for Music-Grounded Non-Linear Video Editingcited by 2
  8. 2026SharedRequest: Privacy-Preserving Model-Agnostic Inference for Large Language Modelscited by 1
  9. 2026Agentic Visual Generation: From Generative Models to Agentic Controlcited by 1
  10. 2026Test-Time Scaling in Multimodal Foundation Models: A Comprehensive Survey of Generation and Reasoningcited by 0
  11. 2026Test-Time Scaling for Video Diffusion Models via Diagnosis-Guided Candidate Recyclingcited by 0
  12. 2026SegBanana: Steering Unified Multimodal Models into Medical Segmenterscited by 0
5 more
  1. 2026Rethinking Multi-Image Re-Representation in Multi-Image Understandingcited by 0
  2. 2026Internalizing Agent Experience into Diffusion Model Weights via On-Policy Context Distillationcited by 0
  3. 2026Illusory Pattern Perception Drives Spurious Inference in Large Language Modelscited by 0
  4. 2026Reasoning-Informed Visual Editingcited by 0
  5. 2026APT: Feedback-Driven Agentic Post-Training for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 0

Similar, not cited

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  1. 2025CRAFT: Continuous Reasoning and Agentic Feedback Tuning for Multimodal Text-to-Image Generation
  2. 2026GenAgent: Scaling Text-to-Image Generation via Agentic Multimodal Reasoning
  3. 2026ToolArtist: Tool-Using Unified Multimodal Models for Agentic Image Generation
  4. 2025GenPilot: A Multi-Agent System for Test-Time Prompt Optimization in Image Generation
  5. 2026M3: High-fidelity Text-to-Image Generation via Multi-Modal, Multi-Agent and Multi-Round Visual Reasoning
  6. 2026WeAgent-MMGenEdit: A Full-Stack Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Image Generation and Editing
  7. 2025Collaborative Text-to-Image Generation via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning and Semantic Fusion
  8. 2026FiRe: Fine-grained Multimodal Reasoning for Enhanced Image Generation