mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Evaluating Gemini Robotics Policies in a Veo World Simulator

arXiv 2512.10675 ↗First posted 11 Dec 2025cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 51

On the map: World models → Embodied and robot world models

Abstract (arXiv)

Generative world models hold significant potential for simulating interactions with visuomotor policies in varied environments. Frontier video models can enable generation of realistic observations and environment interactions in a scalable and general manner. However, the use of video models in robotics has been limited primarily to in-distribution evaluations, i.e., scenarios that are similar to ones used to train the policy or fine-tune the base video model. In this report, we demonstrate that video models can be used for the entire spectrum of policy evaluation use cases in robotics: from assessing nominal performance to out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization, and probing physical and semantic safety. We introduce a generative evaluation system built upon a frontier video foundation model (Veo). The system is optimized to support robot action conditioning and multi-view consistency, while integrating generative image-editing and multi-view completion to synthesize realistic variations of real-world scenes along multiple axes of generalization. We demonstrate that the system preserves the base capabilities of the video model to enable accurate simulation of scenes that have been edited to include novel interaction objects, novel visual backgrounds, and novel distractor objects. This fidelity enables accurately predicting the relative performance of different policies in both nominal and OOD conditions, determining the relative impact of different axes of generalization on policy performance, and performing red teaming of policies to expose behaviors that violate physical or semantic safety constraints. We validate these capabilities through 1600+ real-world evaluations of eight Gemini Robotics policy checkpoints and five tasks for a bimanual manipulator.

Key facts. Cited by 51 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Embodied and robot world models, one of 11 directions in World models. Builds on 24 of its 38 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Dec 2025.

Builds on

24 of 38 references.

Closest ancestors · 3

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Ctrl-World: A Controllable Generative World Model for Robot Manipulation11 Oct
  2. 2025WorldGym: World Model as An Environment for Policy Evaluation31 May
  3. 2024ALOHA 2: An Enhanced Low-Cost Hardware for Bimanual Teleoperation7 Feb

Other references · 21

  1. 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
  2. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 3,080
  3. 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,581
  4. 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 864
  5. 2024Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulationcited by 495
  6. 2023Safety-Tuned LLaMAs: Lessons From Improving the Safety of Large Language Models that Follow Instructionscited by 387
  7. 2024Reconciling Reality through Simulation: A Real-to-Sim-to-Real Approach for Robust Manipulationcited by 144
  8. 2025Training Agents Inside of Scalable World Modelscited by 136
  9. 2024ALOHA Unleashed: A Simple Recipe for Robot Dexteritycited by 134
  10. 2024THE COLOSSEUM: A Benchmark for Evaluating Generalization for Robotic Manipulationcited by 133
  11. 2025Gemini Robotics 1.5: Pushing the Frontier of Generalist Robots with Advanced Embodied Reasoning, Thinking, and Motion Transfercited by 87
  12. 2025Gemini Robotics: Bringing AI into the Physical Worldcited by 83
9 more
  1. 2025Foundation Models in Autonomous Driving: A Survey on Scenario Generation and Scenario Analysiscited by 38
  2. 2025Generating Robot Constitutions & Benchmarks for Semantic Safetycited by 33
  3. 2025RoboEval: Where Robotic Manipulation Meets Structured and Scalable Evaluationcited by 32
  4. 2025Predictive Red Teaming: Breaking Policies Without Breaking Robotscited by 15
  5. 2025Can AI Perceive Physical Danger and Intervene?cited by 14
  6. 2025Reliable and Scalable Robot Policy Evaluation with Imperfect Simulatorscited by 14
  7. 2023Building a Credible Case for Safety: Waymo's Approach for the Determination of Absence of Unreasonable Riskcited by 11
  8. 2025Determining Absence of Unreasonable Risk: Approval Guidelines for an Automated Driving System Deploymentcited by 3
  9. 2024Modeling the Impact of Timeline Algorithms on Opinion Dynamics Using Low-rank Updatescited by 1

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 49.

51 papers.

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  1. 2026Causal World Modeling for Robot Controlcited by 321
  2. 2025mimic-video: Video-Action Models for Generalizable Robot Control Beyond VLAscited by 142
  3. 2026DreamDojo: A Generalist Robot World Model from Large-Scale Human Videoscited by 135
  4. 2026StarVLA: A Lego-like Codebase for Vision-Language-Action Model Developingcited by 112
  5. 2026PointWorld: Scaling 3D World Models for In-The-Wild Robotic Manipulationcited by 82
  6. 2026World Action Models: The Next Frontier in Embodied AIcited by 50
  7. 2026World Model for Robot Learning: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 46
  8. 2026Native Video-Action Pretraining for Generalizable Robot Controlcited by 36
  9. 2025PolaRiS: Scalable Real-to-Sim Evaluations for Generalist Robot Policiescited by 33
  10. 2026Interactive World Simulator for Robot Policy Training and Evaluationcited by 31
  11. 2026LLM-as-a-Verifier: A General-Purpose Verification Frameworkcited by 30
  12. 2026RoboWM-Bench: A Benchmark for Evaluating World Models in Robotic Manipulationcited by 19
38 more
  1. 2026PlayWorld: Learning Robot World Models from Autonomous Playcited by 18
  2. 2026World Action Verifier: Self-Improving World Models via Forward-Inverse Asymmetrycited by 18
  3. 2026FutureVLA: Joint Visuomotor Prediction for Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 16
  4. 2026Scaling Mixture-of-Experts Video Pretraining for Embodied Intelligencecited by 15
  5. 2026EVA: Aligning Video World Models with Executable Robot Actions via Inverse Dynamics Rewardscited by 14
  6. 2026Restoring Linguistic Grounding in VLA Models via Train-Free Attention Recalibrationcited by 12
  7. 2026Kinema4D: Kinematic 4D World Modeling for Spatiotemporal Embodied Simulationcited by 12
  8. 2026World Action Models: A Surveycited by 12
  9. 2026Thinking in Frames: How Visual Context and Test-Time Scaling Empower Video Reasoningcited by 10
  10. 2026How Should World Models Be Evaluated for Embodied Decision-Making? A Decision-Making-Centric Positioncited by 10
  11. 2026CoF-T2I: Video Models as Pure Visual Reasoners for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 9
  12. 2026Beyond Imitation: Reinforcement Learning-Based Sim-Real Co-Training for VLA Modelscited by 9
  13. 2026Demonstration-Free Robotic Control via LLM Agentscited by 8
  14. 2026NovaPlan: Zero-Shot Long-Horizon Manipulation via Closed-Loop Video Language Planningcited by 8
  15. 2026SC3-Eval: Evaluating Robot Foundation Models via Self-Consistent Video Generationcited by 7
  16. 2026VAG: Dual-Stream Video-Action Generation for Embodied Data Synthesiscited by 6
  17. 2026Data Pyramid for Embodied Manipulation: A Surveycited by 6
  18. 2026RoboWorld: Fast and Reliable Neural Simulators for Generalist Robot Policy Evaluationcited by 4
  19. 2026DriftWorld: Fast World Modeling through Driftingcited by 4
  20. 2026OptiWorld: Optimal Control for Video World Generation under Physical Constraintscited by 2
  21. 2026iMaC: Translating Actions into Motion and Contact Images for Embodied World Modelscited by 2
  22. 2026Robot Self-Improvement via Human-Video Dynamics Modelscited by 2
  23. 2026DVG-WM: Disentangled Video Generation Enables Efficient Embodied World Model for Robotic Manipulationcited by 2
  24. 2026Temporal Difference Calibration in Sequential Tasks: Application to Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 1
  25. 2026Reinforcing VLAs in Task-Agnostic World Modelscited by 1
  26. 2026StressDream: Steering Video World Models for Robust Policy Evaluation and Improvementcited by 1
  27. 2026Targeting World Models to Compromise Robot Learning Pipelinescited by 1
  28. 2026Thinking in Video: Can Video Generators Really Reason About the Real World?cited by 1
  29. 2026CLAP: Cross-Embodiment Video World Models are Zero-Shot Physical Simulatorscited by 1
  30. 2026World Models for Embodied Intelligence: From Plausible to Controllable to Actionablecited by 1
  31. 2026Deform360: A Massive Multi-view Visuotactile Dataset for Deformable World Modelscited by 0
  32. 2026Do Better Imagined Rollouts Mean Better Robot Control? A Controlled Study of World-Model Evaluation Under Feedbackcited by 0
  33. 2026No Free Checker: A Survey of Verifiers for Robot Policiescited by 0
  34. 2026DUET-DINO: Simultaneous Cross-View World Modeling for Latent Planning in Robot Manipulationcited by 0
  35. 2026The Neverwhere Visual Parkour Benchmark Suitecited by 0
  36. 2026VPTwin: Real-Sim-Real Video Prediction for Robotic Manipulation Planningcited by 0
  37. 2026WorldPlay2: Extending Real-Time Interactive World Models in Control and Horizoncited by 0
  38. 2026DreamTrue: Action-Faithful Robot World Model with Counterfactual Post-Trainingcited by 0

50 most cited of 51 All 51 (JSON)

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  1. 2025Scalable Policy Evaluation with Video World Models
  2. 2026GeniWorld: A Generalizable Interactive World Model for Robotic Manipulation via Visual Actions
  3. 2025WorldEval: World Model as Real-World Robot Policies Evaluator
  4. 2025DreamGen: Unlocking Generalization in Robot Learning through Video World Models
  5. 2026Cosmos Policy: Fine-Tuning Video Models for Visuomotor Control and Planning
  6. 2026GigaWorld-1: A Roadmap to Build World Models for Robot Policy Evaluation
  7. 2026VLAW: Iterative Co-Improvement of Vision-Language-Action Policy and World Model
  8. 2026Grounding Sim-to-Real Generalization in Robotic Manipulation: An Empirical Study with Vision-Language-Action Models