mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

MemoryArena: Benchmarking Agent Memory in Interdependent Multi-Session Agentic Tasks

arXiv 2602.16313 ↗First posted 18 Feb 2026cs.CLcited by 72

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent memory systems

Abstract (arXiv)

Existing evaluations of agents with memory typically assess memorization and action in isolation. One class of benchmarks evaluates memorization by testing recall of past conversations or text but fails to capture how memory is used to guide future decisions. Another class focuses on agents acting in single-session tasks without the need for long-term memory. However, in realistic settings, memorization and action are tightly coupled: agents acquire memory while interacting with the environment, and subsequently rely on that memory to solve future tasks. To capture this setting, we introduce MemoryArena, a unified evaluation gym for benchmarking agent memory in multi-session Memory-Agent-Environment loops. The benchmark consists of human-crafted agentic tasks with explicitly interdependent subtasks, where agents must learn from earlier actions and feedback by distilling experiences into memory, and subsequently use that memory to guide later actions to solve the overall task. MemoryArena supports evaluation across web navigation, preference-constrained planning, progressive information search, and sequential formal reasoning, and reveals that agents with near-saturated performance on existing long-context memory benchmarks like LoCoMo perform poorly in our agentic setting, exposing a gap in current evaluations for agents with memory. MemoryArena is now released at https://memoryarena.github.io/.

Key facts. Cited by 72 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent memory systems, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 29 of its 34 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Feb 2026.

Builds on

29 of 34 references.

Closest ancestors · 10

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2026AgentLongBench: A Controllable Long Benchmark For Long-Contexts Agents via Environment Rollouts28 Jan
  2. 2026EMemBench: Interactive Benchmarking of Episodic Memory for VLM Agents23 Jan
  3. 2026Mem2ActBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating Long-Term Memory Utilization in Task-Oriented Autonomous Agents13 Jan
  4. 2025Memory in the Age of AI Agents15 Dec
  5. 2025Evo-Memory: Benchmarking LLM Agent Test-time Learning with Self-Evolving Memory25 Nov
  6. 2025MEMTRACK: Evaluating Long-Term Memory and State Tracking in Multi-Platform Dynamic Agent Environments1 Oct
  7. 2025ReasoningBank: Scaling Agent Self-Evolving with Reasoning Memory29 Sep
  8. 2025Evaluating Memory in LLM Agents via Incremental Multi-Turn Interactions7 Jul
  9. 2025Mem0: Building Production-Ready AI Agents with Scalable Long-Term Memory28 Apr
  10. 2024Evaluating Very Long-Term Conversational Memory of LLM Agents27 Feb

Other references · 19

  1. 2023SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?cited by 3,193
  2. 2023WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agentscited by 1,908
  3. 2024From Local to Global: A Graph RAG Approach to Query-Focused Summarizationcited by 1,411
  4. 2023LongBench: A Bilingual, Multitask Benchmark for Long Context Understandingcited by 1,378
  5. 2024RULER: What's the Real Context Size of Your Long-Context Language Models?cited by 1,270
  6. 2023Mind2Web: Towards a Generalist Agent for the Webcited by 1,210
  7. 2022WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agentscited by 1,197
  8. 2024LongMemEval: Benchmarking Chat Assistants on Long-Term Interactive Memorycited by 656
  9. 2025BrowseComp: A Simple Yet Challenging Benchmark for Browsing Agentscited by 616
  10. 2024TravelPlanner: A Benchmark for Real-World Planning with Language Agentscited by 385
  11. 2024∞Bench: Extending Long Context Evaluation Beyond 100K Tokenscited by 360
  12. 2023L-Eval: Instituting Standardized Evaluation for Long Context Language Modelscited by 232
7 more
  1. 2025BrowseComp-Plus: A More Fair and Transparent Evaluation Benchmark of Deep-Research Agentcited by 183
  2. 2024MemoRAG: Boosting Long Context Processing with Global Memory-Enhanced Retrieval Augmentationcited by 118
  3. 2025Mind2Web 2: Evaluating Agentic Search with Agent-as-a-Judgecited by 75
  4. 2025MemoryBench: A Benchmark for Memory and Continual Learning in LLM Systemscited by 56
  5. 2026AgencyBench: Benchmarking the Frontiers of Autonomous Agents in 1M-Token Real-World Contextscited by 26
  6. 2023Memory Gym: Towards Endless Tasks to Benchmark Memory Capabilities of Agentscited by 16
  7. 2025Beyond Task Completion: An Assessment Framework for Evaluating Agentic AI Systemscited by 7

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 72.

72 papers.

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  1. 2026Memory for Autonomous LLM Agents:Mechanisms, Evaluation, and Emerging Frontierscited by 60
  2. 2026SkillOS: Learning Skill Curation for Self-Evolving Agentscited by 45
  3. 2026From Agent Traces to Trust: A Survey of Evidence Tracing and Execution Provenance in LLM Agentscited by 29
  4. 2026LongMemEval-V2: Evaluating Long-Term Agent Memory Toward Experienced Colleaguescited by 17
  5. 2026EvoMemBench: Benchmarking Agent Memory from a Self-Evolving Perspectivecited by 14
  6. 2026PERMA: Benchmarking Personalized Memory Agents via Event-Driven Preference and Realistic Task Environmentscited by 13
  7. 2026Supersede: Diagnosing and Training the Memory-Update Gap in LLM Agentscited by 13
  8. 2026Memory in the LLM Era: Modular Architectures and Strategies in a Unified Frameworkcited by 12
  9. 2026GroupMemBench: Benchmarking LLM Agent Memory in Multi-Party Conversationscited by 12
  10. 2026LLMs Corrupt Your Documents When You Delegatecited by 9
  11. 2026MemSyco-Bench: Benchmarking Sycophancy in Agent Memorycited by 9
  12. 2026GateMem: Benchmarking Memory Governance in Multi-Principal Shared-Memory Agentscited by 8
38 more
  1. 2026Your Agents Are Aging Too: Agent Lifespan Engineering for Deployed Systemscited by 7
  2. 2026Agent Memory: Characterization and System Implications of Stateful Long-Horizon Workloadscited by 7
  3. 2026User as Code: Executable Memory for Personalized Agentscited by 7
  4. 2026Beyond Semantic Organization: Memory as Execution State Management for Long-Horizon Agentscited by 6
  5. 2026π-Bench: Evaluating Proactive Personal Assistant Agents in Long-Horizon Workflowscited by 5
  6. 2026MemTrace: Tracing and Attributing Errors in Large Language Model Memory Systemscited by 5
  7. 2026MemAudit: Auditing Long-Term Agent Memory via Hidden User-State Recoverycited by 5
  8. 2026CEO-Bench: Can Agents Play the Long Game?cited by 4
  9. 2026NativeMEM: Native Memory Compression for Long-Horizon Robotic Manipulationcited by 4
  10. 2026User Preference Modeling for Conversational LLM Agents: Weak Rewards from Retrieval-Augmented Interactioncited by 3
  11. 2026GAAMA: Graph Augmented Associative Memory for Agentscited by 3
  12. 2026FileGram: Grounding Agent Personalization in File-System Behavioral Tracescited by 3
  13. 2026Interactive Evaluation Requires a Design Sciencecited by 3
  14. 2026MemGym: a Long-Horizon Memory Environment for LLM Agentscited by 3
  15. 2026WorldMemArena: Evaluating Multimodal Agent Memory Through Action-World Interactioncited by 3
  16. 2026MemDelta: Controlled Baselines and Hidden Confounds in Agent Memory Evaluationcited by 3
  17. 2026TEPA: Revoking Stale Memories for Conflict-Robust Language Agentscited by 3
  18. 2026Can Agent Memory Systems Track Evolving State?cited by 3
  19. 2026What Happens Inside Agent Memory? Circuit Analysis from Emergence to Diagnosiscited by 2
  20. 2026When Stored Evidence Stops Being Usable: Scale-Conditioned Evaluation of Agent Memorycited by 2
  21. 2026M3Exam: Benchmarking Multimodal Memory for Realistic User-Agent Interactionscited by 2
  22. 2026Getting Better at Working With You: Compiling User Corrections into Runtime Enforcement for Coding Agentscited by 2
  23. 2026SuperLocalMemory 4.0: The Governed Memory Operating System for AI Agentscited by 2
  24. 2026AlphaEval: Evaluating Agents in Productioncited by 1
  25. 2026ZenBrain: A Neuroscience-Inspired 7-Layer Memory Architecture for Autonomous AI Systemscited by 1
  26. 2026MEMOREPAIR: Barrier-First Cascade Repair in Agentic Memorycited by 1
  27. 2026BoostAPR: Boosting Automated Program Repair via Execution-Grounded Reinforcement Learning with Dual Reward Modelscited by 1
  28. 2026SubtleMemory: A Benchmark for Fine-Grained Relational Memory Discrimination in Long-Horizon AI Agentscited by 1
  29. 2026Decision-Aware Memory Cards: Counterfactual-Inspired Context Selection and Compression for Tool-Using LLM Agentscited by 1
  30. 2026OPD-Evolver: Cultivating Holistic Agent Evolver via On-Policy Distillationcited by 1
  31. 2026DMV-Bench: Diagnosing Long-Horizon Multimodal Agents' Visual Memory with Incidental Cue Injectioncited by 1
  32. 2026CHILL-Harness: Counterfactual Harness Learning for Efficient Reasoning in Long-Horizon Agentscited by 1
  33. 2026IFCMemoryBench: Evaluating Long-Term Memory of LLM-Based Agents in BIM Information Retrievalcited by 1
  34. 2026When Personal Memory Has No Single Answer: Evaluating LLM Agents under Irreducible Conflictcited by 1
  35. 2026Authorization Before Context: A Model-Neutral Audience Boundary Against Cross-Audience Memory Leakage in Agentic Systemscited by 1
  36. 2026Graph Engineering in the Era of LLM Agents: From Individual Intelligence to System Intelligencecited by 1
  37. 2026Grounding Agent Memory: Environment-Probing Curation for Enterprise Agentscited by 1
  38. 2026Control-Plane Placement Shapes Forgetting: An Architectural Study of Agent Memory Across Thirteen System Configurationscited by 0

50 most cited of 72 All 72 (JSON)

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  1. 2026AMA-Bench: Evaluating Long-Horizon Memory for Agentic Applications
  2. 2026AdMem: Advanced Memory for Task-solving Agents
  3. 2026Memory as a Controlled Process: Learned Adaptive Memory Management for LLM Agents
  4. 2026Just-In-Time Agent Memory with Runtime Agentic Research
  5. 2026MemCo: Memory-Centric Collaboration for Generalizing LLM Agents to Unseen Environments
  6. 2026From Recall to Forgetting: Benchmarking Long-Term Memory for Personalized Agents
  7. 2026PREPING: Building Agent Memory without Tasks
  8. 2026COUNTERMEM: World-Model Verified Counter-Factual Memory for Language Agents