# Orion: A Unified Visual Agent for Multimodal Perception, Advanced Visual Reasoning and Execution

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14210 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.14210/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 12 of its 18 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Nov 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Multimodal reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/multimodal-reasoning/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Visual Instruction Tuning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08485/) (2023)
- [BLIP-2: Bootstrapping Language-Image Pre-training with Frozen Image Encoders and Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.12597/) (2023)
- [Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.06261/) (2025)
- [MMBench: Is Your Multi-modal Model an All-around Player?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06281/) (2023)
- [Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15334/) (2023)
- [Prometheus-Vision: Vision-Language Model as a Judge for Fine-Grained Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.06591/) (2024)
- [Computational Dynamical Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12179/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Atlas: Orchestrating Heterogeneous Models and Tools for Multi-Domain Complex Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.03872/) (2026)
- [Question-Guided Evidence Acquisition for Multimodal Visual Question Answering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.19739/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce Orion, a visual agent that integrates vision-based reasoning with tool-augmented execution to achieve powerful, precise, multi-step visual intelligence across images, video, and documents. Unlike traditional vision-language models that generate descriptive outputs, Orion orchestrates a suite of specialized computer vision tools, including object detection, keypoint localization, panoptic segmentation, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and geometric analysis, to execute complex multi-step visual workflows. The system achieves competitive performance across MMMU, MMBench, DocVQA, and MMLongBench while extending monolithic VLM capabilities to production-grade visual intelligence. Through its agentic, tool-augmented approach, Orion enables autonomous visual reasoning that bridges neural perception with symbolic execution, marking the transition from passive visual understanding to active, tool-driven visual intelligence. Try Orion for free at: https://chat.vlm.run Learn more at: https://www.vlm.run/orion