Vision-DeepResearch: Incentivizing DeepResearch Capability in Multimodal Large Language Models
On the map: Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models → Document understanding and multimodal RAG
Abstract (arXiv)
Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) have achieved remarkable success across a broad range of vision tasks. However, constrained by the capacity of their internal world knowledge, prior work has proposed augmenting MLLMs by ``reasoning-then-tool-call'' for visual and textual search engines to obtain substantial gains on tasks requiring extensive factual information. However, these approaches typically define multimodal search in a naive setting, assuming that a single full-level or entity-level image query and few text query suffices to retrieve the key evidence needed to answer the question, which is unrealistic in real-world scenarios with substantial visual noise. Moreover, they are often limited in the reasoning depth and search breadth, making it difficult to solve complex questions that require aggregating evidence from diverse visual and textual sources. Building on this, we propose Vision-DeepResearch, which proposes one new multimodal deep-research paradigm, i.e., performs multi-turn, multi-entity and multi-scale visual and textual search to robustly hit real-world search engines under heavy noise. Our Vision-DeepResearch supports dozens of reasoning steps and hundreds of engine interactions, while internalizing deep-research capabilities into the MLLM via cold-start supervision and RL training, resulting in a strong end-to-end multimodal deep-research MLLM. It substantially outperforming existing multimodal deep-research MLLMs, and workflows built on strong closed-source foundation model such as GPT-5, Gemini-2.5-pro and Claude-4-Sonnet. The code will be released in https://github.com/Osilly/Vision-DeepResearch.
Key facts. Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Document understanding and multimodal RAG, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models. Builds on 18 of its 26 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 29 Jan 2026.
Builds on
18 of 26 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
Same direction, newest first
- 2025DeepMMSearch-R1: Empowering Multimodal LLMs in Multimodal Web Search14 Oct
- 2025MMSearch-R1: Incentivizing LMMs to Search25 Jun
Other references · 16
- 2024DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Modelscited by 9,379
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
- 2023Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 7,869
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,330
- 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,796
- 2025OpenAI GPT-5 System Cardcited by 989
- 2025Vision-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in Multimodal Large Language Modelscited by 665
- 2025WebSailor: Navigating Super-human Reasoning for Web Agentcited by 229
- 2025WebDancer: Towards Autonomous Information Seeking Agencycited by 188
- 2016FVQA: Fact-based Visual Question Answeringcited by 181
- 2025WebWalker: Benchmarking LLMs in Web Traversalcited by 175
- 2025WebShaper: Agentically Data Synthesizing via Information-Seeking Formalizationcited by 121
4 more
- 2025WebWatcher: Breaking New Frontier of Vision-Language Deep Research Agentcited by 119
- 2025Reinforcement Learning for Long-Horizon Interactive LLM Agentscited by 108
- 2025Defeating the Training-Inference Mismatch via FP16cited by 66
- 2025MMSearch-Plus: Benchmarking Provenance-Aware Search for Multimodal Browsing Agentscited by 38
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Citing papers per year: 2026: 37.
37 papers.
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- 2026REDSearcher: A Scalable and Cost-Efficient Framework for Long-Horizon Search Agentscited by 49
- 2026Harness VLA: Steering Frozen VLAs into Reliable Manipulation Primitives via Memory-Guided Agentscited by 47
- 2026Flow-OPD: On-Policy Distillation for Flow Matching Modelscited by 34
- 2026Gen-Searcher: Reinforcing Agentic Search for Image Generationcited by 30
- 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agentscited by 25
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agentscited by 21
- 2026Unify-Agent: A Unified Multimodal Agent for World-Grounded Image Synthesiscited by 17
- 2026Towards Long-horizon Agentic Multimodal Searchcited by 11
- 2026HyperEyes: Dual-Grained Efficiency-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Parallel Multimodal Search Agentscited by 10
- 2026BrowseComp-V3: A Visual, Vertical, and Verifiable Benchmark for Multimodal Browsing Agentscited by 8
- 2026PatchCue: Enhancing Vision-Language Model Reasoning with Patch-Based Visual Cuescited by 8
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoningcited by 8
25 more
- 2026VimRAG: Navigating Massive Visual Context in Retrieval-Augmented Generation via Multimodal Memory Graphcited by 5
- 2026Agentic-MME: What Agentic Capability Really Brings to Multimodal Intelligence?cited by 5
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Searchcited by 5
- 2026S1-DeepResearch: Beyond Search, Toward Real-World Long-Horizon Research Agentscited by 5
- 2026SearchEyes: Towards Frontier Multimodal Deep Search Intelligence via Search World Simulationcited by 5
- 2026TRACER: Verifiable Generative Provenance for Multimodal Tool-Using Agentscited by 3
- 2026REVERSE: Reinforcing Evidence Verification and Search for Agentic Image geo-localizationcited by 2
- 2026InterleaveThinker: Reinforcing Agentic Interleaved Generationcited by 2
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Searchcited by 2
- 2026ADORA: Training Reasoning Models with Dynamic Advantage Estimation on Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
- 2026Internalizing Meta-Experience into Memory for Guided Reinforcement Learning in Large Language Modelscited by 1
- 2026ToolAnchor: Anchoring Counterfactual Context to Boost Agentic Tool-use Capabilitycited by 1
- 2026LongChart VQA: A Comprehensive Benchmark for MLLMs with Complex Multi-Chart Reasoningcited by 1
- 2026WeAgent-MMSearch: Native Text-Vision Interaction for Multimodal Search Agentscited by 1
- 2026VideoGAIA: A Benchmark for General AI Assistants on Agentic Video Understandingcited by 0
- 2026PathoArgus: Advancing Evidence-Grounded Long-Context Visual Reasoning across Gigapixel Whole-Slide and Multi-Slide Case Contextscited by 0
- 2026Thinking Beyond Videos: Unifying Video Reasoning and Deep Research for Open-World Video Agentscited by 0
- 2026AdaVDR: Adaptive Tool Use and Reflection for Video Deep Researchcited by 0
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPOcited by 0
- 2026Stable-MM-R1: Anchoring Multimodal Reasoning Dynamics via Entropy-Guided Stratificationcited by 0
- 2026EviRover: Reinforcing Agentic Perception Beyond a Glancecited by 0
- 2026VideoResearchAgent: Grounded Task Synthesis and Sim-to-Real RL for Open-Web Video Researchcited by 0
- 2026Long-MDR: Long-Context Reinforcement Learning for Multimodal Deep-Research Agentscited by 0
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Videocited by 0
- 2026Neos: Learning to Interleave Search and Visual Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026Neos: Learning to Interleave Search and Visual Reasoning12 Oct 2026
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Video8 Oct 2026
- 2026Long-MDR: Long-Context Reinforcement Learning for Multimodal Deep-Research Agents4 Oct 2026
- 2026VideoResearchAgent: Grounded Task Synthesis and Sim-to-Real RL for Open-Web Video Research4 Oct 2026
- 2026EviRover: Reinforcing Agentic Perception Beyond a Glance30 Sep 2026
- 2026Stable-MM-R1: Anchoring Multimodal Reasoning Dynamics via Entropy-Guided Stratification7 Sep 2026
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPO29 Aug 2026
- 2026WeAgent-MMSearch: Native Text-Vision Interaction for Multimodal Search Agents28 Aug 2026
- 2026AdaVDR: Adaptive Tool Use and Reflection for Video Deep Research26 Aug 2026
- 2026Thinking Beyond Videos: Unifying Video Reasoning and Deep Research for Open-World Video Agents24 Aug 2026
- 2026PathoArgus: Advancing Evidence-Grounded Long-Context Visual Reasoning across Gigapixel Whole-Slide and Multi-Slide Case Contexts18 Aug 2026
- 2026VideoGAIA: A Benchmark for General AI Assistants on Agentic Video Understanding12 Aug 2026
25 more
- 2026LongChart VQA: A Comprehensive Benchmark for MLLMs with Complex Multi-Chart Reasoning2 Aug 2026
- 2026ToolAnchor: Anchoring Counterfactual Context to Boost Agentic Tool-use Capability14 Jul 2026
- 2026Harness VLA: Steering Frozen VLAs into Reliable Manipulation Primitives via Memory-Guided Agents9 Jul 2026
- 2026SearchEyes: Towards Frontier Multimodal Deep Search Intelligence via Search World Simulation7 Jul 2026
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Search30 Jun 2026
- 2026S1-DeepResearch: Beyond Search, Toward Real-World Long-Horizon Research Agents13 Jun 2026
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoning13 Jun 2026
- 2026InterleaveThinker: Reinforcing Agentic Interleaved Generation11 Jun 2026
- 2026REVERSE: Reinforcing Evidence Verification and Search for Agentic Image geo-localization26 May 2026
- 2026TRACER: Verifiable Generative Provenance for Multimodal Tool-Using Agents11 May 2026
- 2026Flow-OPD: On-Policy Distillation for Flow Matching Models8 May 2026
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Search8 May 2026
- 2026HyperEyes: Dual-Grained Efficiency-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Parallel Multimodal Search Agents8 May 2026
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agents6 May 2026
- 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agents19 Apr 2026
- 2026Towards Long-horizon Agentic Multimodal Search14 Apr 2026
- 2026Agentic-MME: What Agentic Capability Really Brings to Multimodal Intelligence?3 Apr 2026
- 2026Unify-Agent: A Unified Multimodal Agent for World-Grounded Image Synthesis31 Mar 2026
- 2026Gen-Searcher: Reinforcing Agentic Search for Image Generation30 Mar 2026
- 2026PatchCue: Enhancing Vision-Language Model Reasoning with Patch-Based Visual Cues6 Mar 2026
- 2026REDSearcher: A Scalable and Cost-Efficient Framework for Long-Horizon Search Agents15 Feb 2026
- 2026BrowseComp-V3: A Visual, Vertical, and Verifiable Benchmark for Multimodal Browsing Agents13 Feb 2026
- 2026VimRAG: Navigating Massive Visual Context in Retrieval-Augmented Generation via Multimodal Memory Graph13 Feb 2026
- 2026Internalizing Meta-Experience into Memory for Guided Reinforcement Learning in Large Language Models10 Feb 2026
- 2026ADORA: Training Reasoning Models with Dynamic Advantage Estimation on Reinforcement Learning10 Feb 2026
- 2026REDSearcher: A Scalable and Cost-Efficient Framework for Long-Horizon Search Agentscited by 49
- 2026Harness VLA: Steering Frozen VLAs into Reliable Manipulation Primitives via Memory-Guided Agentscited by 47
- 2026Gen-Searcher: Reinforcing Agentic Search for Image Generationcited by 30
- 2026Unify-Agent: A Unified Multimodal Agent for World-Grounded Image Synthesiscited by 17
- 2026Towards Long-horizon Agentic Multimodal Searchcited by 11
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Searchcited by 5
- 2026S1-DeepResearch: Beyond Search, Toward Real-World Long-Horizon Research Agentscited by 5
- 2026InterleaveThinker: Reinforcing Agentic Interleaved Generationcited by 2
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Searchcited by 2
- 2026ToolAnchor: Anchoring Counterfactual Context to Boost Agentic Tool-use Capabilitycited by 1
- 2026WeAgent-MMSearch: Native Text-Vision Interaction for Multimodal Search Agentscited by 1
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPOcited by 0
12 most cited of 16 All 16 (JSON)
- 2026OneSearch-VL: Unified Multimodal Deep Research Agent for Image and Video8 Oct 2026
- 2026Long-MDR: Long-Context Reinforcement Learning for Multimodal Deep-Research Agents4 Oct 2026
- 2026VideoResearchAgent: Grounded Task Synthesis and Sim-to-Real RL for Open-Web Video Research4 Oct 2026
- 2026EviRover: Reinforcing Agentic Perception Beyond a Glance30 Sep 2026
- 2026LiteSearch-VL: Small Multimodal Search Agents via Trajectory Distillation and Synthetic Step-DPO29 Aug 2026
- 2026WeAgent-MMSearch: Native Text-Vision Interaction for Multimodal Search Agents28 Aug 2026
- 2026ToolAnchor: Anchoring Counterfactual Context to Boost Agentic Tool-use Capability14 Jul 2026
- 2026Harness VLA: Steering Frozen VLAs into Reliable Manipulation Primitives via Memory-Guided Agents9 Jul 2026
- 2026SimpleSearch-VL: A Simple Recipe for Multimodal Agentic Deep Search30 Jun 2026
- 2026S1-DeepResearch: Beyond Search, Toward Real-World Long-Horizon Research Agents13 Jun 2026
- 2026InterleaveThinker: Reinforcing Agentic Interleaved Generation11 Jun 2026
- 2026InterLV-Search: Benchmarking Interleaved Multimodal Agentic Search8 May 2026
12 newest of 16 All 16 (JSON)
- 2026PatchCue: Enhancing Vision-Language Model Reasoning with Patch-Based Visual Cuescited by 8
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoningcited by 8
- 2026SearchEyes: Towards Frontier Multimodal Deep Search Intelligence via Search World Simulationcited by 5
- 2026ADORA: Training Reasoning Models with Dynamic Advantage Estimation on Reinforcement Learningcited by 1
- 2026Internalizing Meta-Experience into Memory for Guided Reinforcement Learning in Large Language Modelscited by 1
- 2026LongChart VQA: A Comprehensive Benchmark for MLLMs with Complex Multi-Chart Reasoningcited by 1
- 2026PathoArgus: Advancing Evidence-Grounded Long-Context Visual Reasoning across Gigapixel Whole-Slide and Multi-Slide Case Contextscited by 0
- 2026Stable-MM-R1: Anchoring Multimodal Reasoning Dynamics via Entropy-Guided Stratificationcited by 0
- 2026Neos: Learning to Interleave Search and Visual Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026Neos: Learning to Interleave Search and Visual Reasoning12 Oct 2026
- 2026Stable-MM-R1: Anchoring Multimodal Reasoning Dynamics via Entropy-Guided Stratification7 Sep 2026
- 2026PathoArgus: Advancing Evidence-Grounded Long-Context Visual Reasoning across Gigapixel Whole-Slide and Multi-Slide Case Contexts18 Aug 2026
- 2026LongChart VQA: A Comprehensive Benchmark for MLLMs with Complex Multi-Chart Reasoning2 Aug 2026
- 2026SearchEyes: Towards Frontier Multimodal Deep Search Intelligence via Search World Simulation7 Jul 2026
- 2026Visual-Seeker: Towards Visual-Native Multimodal Agentic Search via Active Visual Reasoning13 Jun 2026
- 2026PatchCue: Enhancing Vision-Language Model Reasoning with Patch-Based Visual Cues6 Mar 2026
- 2026Internalizing Meta-Experience into Memory for Guided Reinforcement Learning in Large Language Models10 Feb 2026
- 2026ADORA: Training Reasoning Models with Dynamic Advantage Estimation on Reinforcement Learning10 Feb 2026
- 2026BrowseComp-V3: A Visual, Vertical, and Verifiable Benchmark for Multimodal Browsing Agentscited by 8
- 2026Agentic-MME: What Agentic Capability Really Brings to Multimodal Intelligence?cited by 5
- 2026TRACER: Verifiable Generative Provenance for Multimodal Tool-Using Agentscited by 3
- 2026VideoGAIA: A Benchmark for General AI Assistants on Agentic Video Understandingcited by 0
- 2026VideoGAIA: A Benchmark for General AI Assistants on Agentic Video Understanding12 Aug 2026
- 2026TRACER: Verifiable Generative Provenance for Multimodal Tool-Using Agents11 May 2026
- 2026Agentic-MME: What Agentic Capability Really Brings to Multimodal Intelligence?3 Apr 2026
- 2026BrowseComp-V3: A Visual, Vertical, and Verifiable Benchmark for Multimodal Browsing Agents13 Feb 2026
- 2026Flow-OPD: On-Policy Distillation for Flow Matching Modelscited by 34
- 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agentscited by 25
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agentscited by 21
- 2026Thinking Beyond Videos: Unifying Video Reasoning and Deep Research for Open-World Video Agentscited by 0
- 2026AdaVDR: Adaptive Tool Use and Reflection for Video Deep Researchcited by 0
- 2026AdaVDR: Adaptive Tool Use and Reflection for Video Deep Research26 Aug 2026
- 2026Thinking Beyond Videos: Unifying Video Reasoning and Deep Research for Open-World Video Agents24 Aug 2026
- 2026OpenSearch-VL: An Open Recipe for Frontier Multimodal Search Agents6 May 2026
- 2026SkillFlow:Benchmarking Lifelong Skill Discovery and Evolution for Autonomous Agents19 Apr 2026
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