mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

M^3-Bench: Multi-Modal, Multi-Hop, Multi-Threaded Tool-Using MLLM Agent Benchmark

arXiv 2511.17729 ↗First posted 21 Nov 2025cs.AIcited by 11

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Tool learning and function calling

Abstract (arXiv)

We present M^3-Bench, the first benchmark for evaluating multimodal tool use under the Model Context Protocol. The benchmark targets realistic, multi-hop and multi-threaded workflows that require visual grounding and textual reasoning, cross-tool dependencies, and persistence of intermediate resources across steps. We introduce a similarity-driven alignment that serializes each tool call, embeds signatures with a sentence encoder, and performs similarity-bucketed Hungarian matching to obtain auditable one-to-one correspondences. On top of this alignment, we report interpretable metrics that decouple semantic fidelity from workflow consistency. The benchmark spans 28 servers with 231 tools, and provides standardized trajectories curated through an Executor & Judge pipeline with human verification; an auxiliary four large language models (LLMs) judge ensemble reports end-task Task Completion and information grounding. Evaluations of representative state-of-the-art Multimodal LLMs (MLLMs) reveal persistent gaps in multimodal MCP tool use, particularly in argument fidelity and structure consistency, underscoring the need for methods that jointly reason over images, text, and tool graphs. Our Benchmark's anonymous repository is at https://github.com/EtaYang10th/Open-M3-Bench

Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Tool learning and function calling, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 28 of its 93 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 Nov 2025.

Builds on

28 of 93 references.

Closest ancestors · 11

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025MCP-Bench: Benchmarking Tool-Using LLM Agents with Complex Real-World Tasks via MCP Servers28 Aug
  2. 2025MCP-Universe: Benchmarking Large Language Models with Real-World Model Context Protocol Servers20 Aug
  3. 2025LiveMCPBench: Can Agents Navigate an Ocean of MCP Tools?3 Aug
  4. 2025MCPEval: Automatic MCP-based Deep Evaluation for AI Agent Models17 Jul
  5. 2025MCP-RADAR: A Multi-Dimensional Benchmark for Evaluating Tool Use Capabilities in Large Language Models22 May
  6. 2025ToolHop: A Query-Driven Benchmark for Evaluating Large Language Models in Multi-Hop Tool Use5 Jan
  7. 2024AnyTool: Self-Reflective, Hierarchical Agents for Large-Scale API Calls6 Feb
  8. 2023MetaTool Benchmark for Large Language Models: Deciding Whether to Use Tools and Which to Use4 Oct
  9. 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs31 Jul
  10. 2023Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIs24 May
  11. 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools9 Feb

Other references · 17

  1. 2019Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networkscited by 9,170
  2. 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,820
  3. 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
  4. 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
  5. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 2,006
  6. 2024τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domainscited by 1,402
  7. 2023HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Facecited by 1,190
  8. 2023GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistantscited by 1,128
  9. 2023Large Language Modelscited by 780
  10. 2025GLM-4.5: Agentic, Reasoning, and Coding (ARC) Foundation Modelscited by 467
  11. 2025GLM-4.5V and GLM-4.1V-Thinking: Towards Versatile Multimodal Reasoning with Scalable Reinforcement Learningcited by 466
  12. 2025MiniMax-M1: Scaling Test-Time Compute Efficiently with Lightning Attentioncited by 263
5 more
  1. 2024The BrowserGym Ecosystem for Web Agent Researchcited by 161
  2. 2025ARE: Scaling Up Agent Environments and Evaluationscited by 30
  3. 2025Two Heads are Better Than One: Test-time Scaling of Multi-agent Collaborative Reasoningcited by 29
  4. 2024MINTQA: A Multi-Hop Question Answering Benchmark for Evaluating LLMs on New and Tail Knowledgecited by 20
  5. 2025AIRL-S: Unifying Reinforcement Learning and Search-Based Test-Time Scaling via Adversarial Inverse Reinforcement Learningcited by 14

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 10.

11 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026MCP-Atlas: A Large-Scale Benchmark for Tool-Use Competency with Real MCP Servers
  2. 2024MLLM-Tool: A Multimodal Large Language Model For Tool Agent Learning
  3. 2026Agentic-MME: What Agentic Capability Really Brings to Multimodal Intelligence?
  4. 2026Benchmarking the Benchmarks: A Validity Audit of Tool-Calling Evaluation
  5. 2026ATP-Bench: Towards Agentic Tool Planning for MLLM Interleaved Generation
  6. 2026E-Bench: Benchmarking Multi-Step Tool-Use Agents in Real-World Product Scenarios
  7. 2026ToolMenuBench: Benchmarking Tool-Menu Filtering Strategies for Reliable and Efficient LLM Agents
  8. 2025MCPAgentBench: A Real-world Task Benchmark for Evaluating LLM Agent MCP Tool Use