SenseNova-MARS: Empowering Multimodal Agentic Reasoning and Search via Reinforcement Learning
On the map: LLM reasoning → Multimodal reasoning
also in 2 more
Abstract (arXiv)
While Vision-Language Models (VLMs) can solve complex tasks through agentic reasoning, their capabilities remain largely constrained to text-oriented chain-of-thought or isolated tool invocation. They fail to exhibit the human-like proficiency required to seamlessly interleave dynamic tool manipulation with continuous reasoning, particularly in knowledge-intensive and visually complex scenarios that demand coordinated external tools such as search and image cropping. In this work, we introduce SenseNova-MARS, a novel Multimodal Agentic Reasoning and Search framework that empowers VLMs with interleaved visual reasoning and tool-use capabilities via reinforcement learning (RL). Specifically, SenseNova-MARS dynamically integrates the image search, text search, and image crop tools to tackle fine-grained and knowledge-intensive visual understanding challenges. In the RL stage, we propose the Batch-Normalized Group Sequence Policy Optimization (BN-GSPO) algorithm to improve the training stability and advance the model's ability to invoke tools and reason effectively. To comprehensively evaluate the agentic VLMs on complex visual tasks, we introduce the HR-MMSearch benchmark, the first search-oriented benchmark composed of high-resolution images with knowledge-intensive and search-driven questions. Experiments demonstrate that SenseNova-MARS achieves state-of-the-art performance on open-source search and fine-grained image understanding benchmarks. Specifically, on search-oriented benchmarks, SenseNova-MARS-32B scores 74.3 on MMSearch and 54.4 on HR-MMSearch, surpassing proprietary models such as Gemini-3-Pro and GPT-5.2. SenseNova-MARS represents a promising step toward agentic VLMs by providing effective and robust tool-use capabilities. To facilitate further research in this field, we will release all code, models, and datasets.
Key facts. Cited by 31 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 43 of its 58 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Dec 2025.
Builds on
43 of 58 references.
Closest ancestors · 9
Same direction, newest first
- 2025Monet: Reasoning in Latent Visual Space Beyond Images and Language26 Nov
- 2025Reinforced Visual Perception with Tools1 Sep
- 2025InternVL3.5: Advancing Open-Source Multimodal Models in Versatility, Reasoning, and Efficiency25 Aug
- 2025Thyme: Think Beyond Images15 Aug
- 2025Thinking with Images for Multimodal Reasoning: Foundations, Methods, and Future Frontiers30 Jun
- 2025Pixel Reasoner: Incentivizing Pixel-Space Reasoning with Curiosity-Driven Reinforcement Learning21 May
- 2025DeepEyes: Incentivizing "Thinking with Images" via Reinforcement Learning20 May
- 2025Visual Agentic Reinforcement Fine-Tuning20 May
- 2025OpenThinkIMG: Learning to Think with Images via Visual Tool Reinforcement Learning13 May
Other references · 34
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 8,851
- 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,195
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,146
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,418
- 2024GPT-4o System Cardcited by 4,467
- 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,655
- 2025DAPO: An Open-Source LLM Reinforcement Learning System at Scalecited by 2,678
- 2024LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfercited by 2,669
- 2025Qwen3-VL Technical Reportcited by 2,534
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
- 2024LlamaFactory: Unified Efficient Fine-Tuning of 100+ Language Modelscited by 1,442
- 2025Search-R1: Training LLMs to Reason and Leverage Search Engines with Reinforcement Learningcited by 1,371
22 more
- 2025Group Sequence Policy Optimizationcited by 788
- 2025Qwen2.5-Omni Technical Reportcited by 704
- 2025Search-o1: Agentic Search-Enhanced Large Reasoning Modelscited by 423
- 2025ReTool: Reinforcement Learning for Strategic Tool Use in LLMscited by 377
- 2024MME-RealWorld: Could Your Multimodal LLM Challenge High-Resolution Real-World Scenarios that are Difficult for Humans?cited by 284
- 2024VisRAG: Vision-based Retrieval-augmented Generation on Multi-modality Documentscited by 237
- 2023Can Pre-trained Vision and Language Models Answer Visual Information-Seeking Questions?cited by 203
- 2025ToRL: Scaling Tool-Integrated RLcited by 166
- 2025Agentic Reinforced Policy Optimizationcited by 166
- 2025MMSearch-R1: Incentivizing LMMs to Searchcited by 120
- 2025DeepEyesV2: Toward Agentic Multimodal Modelcited by 119
- 2025Mini-o3: Scaling Up Reasoning Patterns and Interaction Turns for Visual Searchcited by 116
- 2025WebWatcher: Breaking New Frontier of Vision-Language Deep Research Agentcited by 114
- 2025Agentic Reasoning and Tool Integration for LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 107
- 2024MMSearch: Benchmarking the Potential of Large Models as Multi-modal Search Enginescited by 98
- 2025VerlTool: Towards Holistic Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Tool Usecited by 92
- 2025Tool-Star: Empowering LLM-Brained Multi-Tool Reasoner via Reinforcement Learningcited by 67
- 2024MLLM Is a Strong Reranker: Advancing Multimodal Retrieval-augmented Generation via Knowledge-enhanced Reranking and Noise-injected Trainingcited by 50
- 2025DeepMMSearch-R1: Empowering Multimodal LLMs in Multimodal Web Searchcited by 41
- 2023SAIL: Search-Augmented Instruction Learningcited by 33
- 2025Skywork-R1V4: Toward Agentic Multimodal Intelligence through Interleaved Thinking with Images and DeepResearchcited by 25
- 2025Seeking and Updating with Live Visual Knowledgecited by 23
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 31.
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- 2026Vision-OPD: Learning to See Fine Details for Multimodal LLMs via On-Policy Self-Distillationcited by 71
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19 more
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- 2026SpecEyes: Accelerating Agentic Multimodal LLMs via Speculative Perception and Planningcited by 1
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearchcited by 1
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Searchcited by 1
- 2026Beyond Zooming: Learning Multi-Tool Visual Reasoning for Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensingcited by 1
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- 2026A Task-Driven Evaluation of UAV Detection and Tracking under Synthetic Fogcited by 0
- 2026Silent Failures in Multimodal Agentic Search:A Diagnostic Taxonomy and Cross-Judge Evaluationcited by 0
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- 2026TryOnReward: Learning Foveated Consistency for Reinforcement Fine-Tuning of Virtual Try-Oncited by 0
- 2026Evidence-Aligned Multimodal On-Policy Self-Distillation for Fine-Grained Visual Understandingcited by 0
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- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Videocited by 0
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Video8 Oct 2026
- 2026Selection-Based Structured Reasoning: Toward Efficient Multimodal Search Agents1 Oct 2026
- 2026InfoAgent: Traceable Generation and Repair of Evidence-Grounded Infographics30 Sep 2026
- 2026Evidence-Aligned Multimodal On-Policy Self-Distillation for Fine-Grained Visual Understanding28 Sep 2026
- 2026TryOnReward: Learning Foveated Consistency for Reinforcement Fine-Tuning of Virtual Try-On6 Sep 2026
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPO29 Aug 2026
- 2026OPD-V: Visual On-Policy Self-Distillation with Modality Balance5 Aug 2026
- 2026VAD: Attributing Visual Evidence for Target Reconstruction in Multimodal On-Policy Distillation30 Jul 2026
- 2026Beyond Zooming: Learning Multi-Tool Visual Reasoning for Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing28 Jul 2026
- 2026Silent Failures in Multimodal Agentic Search:A Diagnostic Taxonomy and Cross-Judge Evaluation22 Jul 2026
- 2026A Task-Driven Evaluation of UAV Detection and Tracking under Synthetic Fog6 Jul 2026
- 2026VideoSearcher: Empowering Video Deep Research with Multi-Tool Agentic Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning3 Jul 2026
19 more
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- 2026ProMSA:Progressive Multimodal Search Agents for Knowledge-Based Visual Question Answering26 Jun 2026
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- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoning13 Jun 2026
- 2026IterCAD: An Iterative Multimodal Agent for Visually-Grounded CAD Generation and Editing11 Jun 2026
- 2026Thinking with Imagination: Agentic Visual Spatial Reasoning with World Simulators4 Jun 2026
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearch2 Jun 2026
- 2026Agent Explorative Policy Optimization for Multimodal Agentic Reasoning27 May 2026
- 2026InterSketch: An Interleaved Reasoning Model with Self-correcting Visual Sketch and Stepwise Reward26 May 2026
- 2026Vision-OPD: Learning to See Fine Details for Multimodal LLMs via On-Policy Self-Distillation18 May 2026
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Search8 May 2026
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agents6 May 2026
- 2026Act Wisely: Cultivating Meta-Cognitive Tool Use in Agentic Multimodal Models9 Apr 2026
- 2026MTA-Agent: An Open Recipe for Multimodal Deep Search Agents7 Apr 2026
- 2026SpecEyes: Accelerating Agentic Multimodal LLMs via Speculative Perception and Planning24 Mar 2026
- 2026VisBrowse-Bench: Benchmarking Visual-Native Search for Multimodal Browsing Agents17 Mar 2026
- 2026MM-DeepResearch: A Simple and Effective Multimodal Agentic Search Baseline1 Mar 2026
- 2026MapTab: A Diagnostic Benchmark for Long-Horizon Multi-Criteria Multimodal Reasoning on Heterogeneous Topological Graphs20 Feb 2026
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perception12 Feb 2026
- 2026OPD-V: Visual On-Policy Self-Distillation with Modality Balancecited by 7
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoningcited by 5
- 2026VideoSearcher: Empowering Video Deep Research with Multi-Tool Agentic Reasoning via Reinforcement Learningcited by 5
- 2026Thinking with Imagination: Agentic Visual Spatial Reasoning with World Simulatorscited by 4
- 2026MapTab: A Diagnostic Benchmark for Long-Horizon Multi-Criteria Multimodal Reasoning on Heterogeneous Topological Graphscited by 3
- 2026Agent Explorative Policy Optimization for Multimodal Agentic Reasoningcited by 2
- 2026SpecEyes: Accelerating Agentic Multimodal LLMs via Speculative Perception and Planningcited by 1
- 2026Beyond Zooming: Learning Multi-Tool Visual Reasoning for Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensingcited by 1
- 2026InterSketch: An Interleaved Reasoning Model with Self-correcting Visual Sketch and Stepwise Rewardcited by 0
- 2026OPD-V: Visual On-Policy Self-Distillation with Modality Balance5 Aug 2026
- 2026Beyond Zooming: Learning Multi-Tool Visual Reasoning for Ultra-High-Resolution Remote Sensing28 Jul 2026
- 2026VideoSearcher: Empowering Video Deep Research with Multi-Tool Agentic Reasoning via Reinforcement Learning3 Jul 2026
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoning13 Jun 2026
- 2026Thinking with Imagination: Agentic Visual Spatial Reasoning with World Simulators4 Jun 2026
- 2026Agent Explorative Policy Optimization for Multimodal Agentic Reasoning27 May 2026
- 2026InterSketch: An Interleaved Reasoning Model with Self-correcting Visual Sketch and Stepwise Reward26 May 2026
- 2026SpecEyes: Accelerating Agentic Multimodal LLMs via Speculative Perception and Planning24 Mar 2026
- 2026MapTab: A Diagnostic Benchmark for Long-Horizon Multi-Criteria Multimodal Reasoning on Heterogeneous Topological Graphs20 Feb 2026
- 2026MM-DeepResearch: A Simple and Effective Multimodal Agentic Search Baselinecited by 18
- 2026Act Wisely: Cultivating Meta-Cognitive Tool Use in Agentic Multimodal Modelscited by 13
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Searchcited by 4
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Searchcited by 1
- 2026Silent Failures in Multimodal Agentic Search:A Diagnostic Taxonomy and Cross-Judge Evaluationcited by 0
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPOcited by 0
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPO29 Aug 2026
- 2026Silent Failures in Multimodal Agentic Search:A Diagnostic Taxonomy and Cross-Judge Evaluation22 Jul 2026
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Search30 Jun 2026
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Search8 May 2026
- 2026Act Wisely: Cultivating Meta-Cognitive Tool Use in Agentic Multimodal Models9 Apr 2026
- 2026MM-DeepResearch: A Simple and Effective Multimodal Agentic Search Baseline1 Mar 2026
- 2026Vision-OPD: Learning to See Fine Details for Multimodal LLMs via On-Policy Self-Distillationcited by 71
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perceptioncited by 47
- 2026VisBrowse-Bench: Benchmarking Visual-Native Search for Multimodal Browsing Agentscited by 8
- 2026MTA-Agent: An Open Recipe for Multimodal Deep Search Agentscited by 7
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearchcited by 1
- 2026VistaHop: Benchmarking Long-Horizon Visual DeepSearch2 Jun 2026
- 2026Vision-OPD: Learning to See Fine Details for Multimodal LLMs via On-Policy Self-Distillation18 May 2026
- 2026MTA-Agent: An Open Recipe for Multimodal Deep Search Agents7 Apr 2026
- 2026VisBrowse-Bench: Benchmarking Visual-Native Search for Multimodal Browsing Agents17 Mar 2026
- 2026Zooming without Zooming: Region-to-Image Distillation for Fine-Grained Multimodal Perception12 Feb 2026
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agentscited by 18
- 2026IterCAD: An Iterative Multimodal Agent for Visually-Grounded CAD Generation and Editingcited by 9
- 2026VAD: Attributing Visual Evidence for Target Reconstruction in Multimodal On-Policy Distillationcited by 5
- 2026ProMSA:Progressive Multimodal Search Agents for Knowledge-Based Visual Question Answeringcited by 3
- 2026A Task-Driven Evaluation of UAV Detection and Tracking under Synthetic Fogcited by 0
- 2026Evidence-Aligned Multimodal On-Policy Self-Distillation for Fine-Grained Visual Understandingcited by 0
- 2026InfoAgent: Traceable Generation and Repair of Evidence-Grounded Infographicscited by 0
- 2026Selection-Based Structured Reasoning: Toward Efficient Multimodal Search Agentscited by 0
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Videocited by 0
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Video8 Oct 2026
- 2026Selection-Based Structured Reasoning: Toward Efficient Multimodal Search Agents1 Oct 2026
- 2026InfoAgent: Traceable Generation and Repair of Evidence-Grounded Infographics30 Sep 2026
- 2026Evidence-Aligned Multimodal On-Policy Self-Distillation for Fine-Grained Visual Understanding28 Sep 2026
- 2026VAD: Attributing Visual Evidence for Target Reconstruction in Multimodal On-Policy Distillation30 Jul 2026
- 2026A Task-Driven Evaluation of UAV Detection and Tracking under Synthetic Fog6 Jul 2026
- 2026ProMSA:Progressive Multimodal Search Agents for Knowledge-Based Visual Question Answering26 Jun 2026
- 2026IterCAD: An Iterative Multimodal Agent for Visually-Grounded CAD Generation and Editing11 Jun 2026
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agents6 May 2026
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