PAI-Bench: A Comprehensive Benchmark For Physical AI
On the map: Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models → Embodied and 3D vision-language models
Abstract (arXiv)
Physical AI aims to develop models that can perceive and predict real-world dynamics; yet, the extent to which current multi-modal large language models and video generative models support these abilities is insufficiently understood. We introduce Physical AI Bench (PAI-Bench), a unified and comprehensive benchmark that evaluates perception and prediction capabilities across video generation, conditional video generation, and video understanding, comprising 2,808 real-world cases with task-aligned metrics designed to capture physical plausibility and domain-specific reasoning. Our study provides a systematic assessment of recent models and shows that video generative models, despite strong visual fidelity, often struggle to maintain physically coherent dynamics, while multi-modal large language models exhibit limited performance in forecasting and causal interpretation. These observations suggest that current systems are still at an early stage in handling the perceptual and predictive demands of Physical AI. In summary, PAI-Bench establishes a realistic foundation for evaluating Physical AI and highlights key gaps that future systems must address.
Key facts. Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Embodied and 3D vision-language models, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models. Builds on 83 of its 101 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 1 Dec 2025.
Builds on
83 of 101 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
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50 most cited of 81 All 81 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 30.
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- 2026ChronoPhyBench: Do MLLMs Truly Understand the World or Merely Exploit Language Priors?cited by 0
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- 2026PhysVista: Benchmarking Physical Intelligence in VLMs via a Perception-Reasoning-Assessment Loop30 Sep 2026
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- 2026Code as Worlds: Agentic Discovery of Executable World Representations for Physical Reasoning27 Aug 2026
- 2026RxBrain: Embodied Cognition Foundation Model with Joint Language-Visual Reasoning and Imagination15 Jul 2026
- 2026Vesta: A Generalist Embodied Reasoning Model18 Jun 2026
- 2026SpatialClaw: Rethinking Action Interface for Agentic Spatial Reasoning11 Jun 2026
- 2026ChronoPhyBench: Do MLLMs Truly Understand the World or Merely Exploit Language Priors?6 Jun 2026
- 2026CausalSpatial: A Benchmark for Object-Centric Causal Spatial Reasoning19 Jan 2026
- 2026Self-Refining Video Samplingcited by 14
- 2026PhysisForcing: Physics Reinforced World Simulator for Robotic Manipulationcited by 7
- 2026OmniFysics: Towards Physical Intelligence Evolution via Omni-Modal Signal Processing and Network Optimizationcited by 5
- 2026Benchmarking Single-Factor Physical Video-to-Audio Generationcited by 1
- 2026VLMs Win a Systematic Evaluation of Underwater Image Reconstructioncited by 0
- 2026OmniFysics-Nano-V2 Technical Report: Understanding the Physical World Across Modalitiescited by 0
- 2026WOVEN: Weaving Visual World Modeling into Multimodal LLMscited by 0
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- 2026OmniFysics-Nano-V2 Technical Report: Understanding the Physical World Across Modalities22 Sep 2026
- 2026VLMs Win a Systematic Evaluation of Underwater Image Reconstruction11 Aug 2026
- 2026PhysisForcing: Physics Reinforced World Simulator for Robotic Manipulation26 Jun 2026
- 2026Benchmarking Single-Factor Physical Video-to-Audio Generation28 May 2026
- 2026OmniFysics: Towards Physical Intelligence Evolution via Omni-Modal Signal Processing and Network Optimization5 Feb 2026
- 2026Self-Refining Video Sampling26 Jan 2026
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