World2Act: Latent Action Post-Training from World Model Dynamics
On the map: World models → Embodied and robot world models
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Abstract (arXiv)
World Models (WMs) offer a promising mechanism for post-training Vision-Language-Action (VLA) policies by providing dynamics priors that improve generalization under task and scene variation. However, most WM-based post-training methods rely on pixel-space supervision, making policies sensitive to visual artifacts introduced by imperfect WM rollouts. We present World2Act, a latent-space post-training framework that transfers WM dynamics to the VLA policy without pixel-space supervision. World2Act operates in two stages: 1) it induces a shared video-action latent space by contrastively aligning WM-dynamics latents with action embeddings, and 2) it post-trains the VLA by guiding policy action representations toward WM-imagined dynamics rather than decoded pixels. Built on GR00T-N1.6, World2Act delivers absolute success-rate gains of up to +2.5% on simulation benchmarks (RoboCasa, LIBERO, Bridge-SIMPLER) and +6.7% on a real robot over finetuned VLA baselines. Notably, it outperforms pixel-space WM supervision by up to +6.0%, including on LIBERO where pixel supervision degrades the baseline, suggesting that latent WM dynamics offer a more stable WM-based post-training alternative to pixel-space transfer.
Key facts. Cited by 8 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 62 of its 64 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Mar 2026.
Builds on
62 of 64 references.
Closest ancestors · 18
Same direction, newest first
- 2026Chain of World: World Model Thinking in Latent Motion3 Mar
- 2026VLAW: Iterative Co-Improvement of Vision-Language-Action Policy and World Model12 Feb
- 2026RISE: Self-Improving Robot Policy with Compositional World Model11 Feb
- 2026DreamDojo: A Generalist Robot World Model from Large-Scale Human Videos6 Feb
- 2026World-Gymnast: Training Robots with Reinforcement Learning in a World Model2 Feb
- 2025Ctrl-World: A Controllable Generative World Model for Robot Manipulation11 Oct
- 2025VLA-RFT: Vision-Language-Action Reinforcement Fine-tuning with Verified Rewards in World Simulators1 Oct
- 2025World-Env: Leveraging World Model as a Virtual Environment for VLA Post-Training29 Sep
- 2025IRL-VLA: Training an Vision-Language-Action Policy via Reward World Model7 Aug
- 2025RoboScape: Physics-informed Embodied World Model29 Jun
- 2025V-JEPA 2: Self-Supervised Video Models Enable Understanding, Prediction and Planning11 Jun
- 2025FLARE: Robot Learning with Implicit World Modeling21 May
6 more
- 2025DreamGen: Unlocking Generalization in Robot Learning through Video World Models19 May
- 2025FlowDreamer: A RGB-D World Model with Flow-based Motion Representations for Robot Manipulation15 May
- 2025Unified World Models: Coupling Video and Action Diffusion for Pretraining on Large Robotic Datasets3 Apr
- 2025AdaWorld: Learning Adaptable World Models with Latent Actions24 Mar
- 2025EnerVerse: Envisioning Embodied Future Space for Robotics Manipulation3 Jan
- 2024RoboDreamer: Learning Compositional World Models for Robot Imagination18 Apr
Other references · 44
- 2020A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representationscited by 12,049
- 2018Representation Learning with Contrastive Predictive Codingcited by 7,777
- 2025DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learningcited by 6,330
- 2025Qwen2.5-VL Technical Reportcited by 5,587
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
- 2025Wan: Open and Advanced Large-Scale Video Generative Modelscited by 2,708
- 2023Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasetscited by 2,581
- 2024π0: A Vision-Language-Action Flow Model for General Robot Controlcited by 2,407
- 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,761
- 2023LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learningcited by 1,410
- 2025GR00T N1: An Open Foundation Model for Generalist Humanoid Robotscited by 1,225
- 2025Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models: Optimizing Speed and Successcited by 883
32 more
- 2025Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AIcited by 864
- 2024LTX-Video: Realtime Video Latent Diffusioncited by 581
- 2019A Theoretical Analysis of Contrastive Unsupervised Representation Learningcited by 530
- 2023Learning Universal Policies via Text-Guided Video Generationcited by 522
- 2024Evaluating Real-World Robot Manipulation Policies in Simulationcited by 495
- 2025UniVLA: Learning to Act Anywhere with Task-centric Latent Actionscited by 410
- 2024RoboCasa: Large-Scale Simulation of Everyday Tasks for Generalist Robotscited by 407
- 2024Latent Action Pretraining from Videoscited by 321
- 2026Cosmos Policy: Fine-Tuning Video Models for Visuomotor Control and Planningcited by 300
- 2025Unified Video Action Modelcited by 205
- 2023GELLO: A General, Low-Cost, and Intuitive Teleoperation Framework for Robot Manipulatorscited by 189
- 2018Residual Policy Learningcited by 164
- 2025Do generative video models understand physical principles?cited by 161
- 2025HunyuanVideo 1.5 Technical Reportcited by 160
- 2025VideoPhy-2: A Challenging Action-Centric Physical Commonsense Evaluation in Video Generationcited by 149
- 2025Interactive Post-Training for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 135
- 2025Improving Vision-Language-Action Model with Online Reinforcement Learningcited by 116
- 2025Universal Actions for Enhanced Embodied Foundation Modelscited by 82
- 2024Moto: Latent Motion Token as the Bridging Language for Learning Robot Manipulation from Videoscited by 69
- 2025VideoVLA: Video Generators Can Be Generalizable Robot Manipulatorscited by 64
- 2025AutoEval: Autonomous Evaluation of Generalist Robot Manipulation Policies in the Real Worldcited by 48
- 2025Pre-Trained Video Generative Models as World Simulatorscited by 44
- 2025What Do Latent Action Models Actually Learn?cited by 32
- 2025A Smooth Sea Never Made a Skilled SAILOR: Robust Imitation via Learning to Searchcited by 17
- 2025WorldWeaver: Generating Long-Horizon Video Worlds via Rich Perceptioncited by 16
- 2026LIVE: Long-horizon Interactive Video World Modelingcited by 16
- 2026DM0: An Embodied-Native Vision-Language-Action Model towards Physical AIcited by 12
- 2025CLASS: Contrastive Learning via Action Sequence Supervision for Robot Manipulationcited by 11
- 2026Rethinking Visual-Language-Action Model Scaling: Alignment, Mixture, and Regularizationcited by 7
- 2026ContactGaussian-WM: Learning Physics-Grounded World Model from Videoscited by 7
- 2026CounterVid: Counterfactual Video Generation for Mitigating Action and Temporal Hallucinations in Video-Language Modelscited by 4
- 2025Bridging VLMs and Embodied Intelligence with Deliberate Practice Policy Optimizationcited by 3
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 8.
8 papers.
- 2026Xiaomi-Robotics-1: Scaling Vision-Language-Action Models with over 100K Hours of Real-World Trajectoriescited by 29
- 2026World Action Verifier: Self-Improving World Models via Forward-Inverse Asymmetrycited by 18
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Surveycited by 6
- 2026Spatially Aware World Action Model via Geometric Latent Diffusioncited by 5
- 2026ActSWM: Action-Sensitive World Models for Long-Horizon Planning in Open-World Gamescited by 3
- 2026WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learningcited by 0
- 2026Representation Learning in Diffusion and Flow-based Model: An Application Aspectcited by 0
- 2026OpenWAM: An Open Framework for Composable World-Action Modelscited by 0
- 2026OpenWAM: An Open Framework for Composable World-Action Models6 Oct 2026
- 2026World-Action Models for Robot Learning and Control: A Survey13 Sep 2026
- 2026Spatially Aware World Action Model via Geometric Latent Diffusion2 Sep 2026
- 2026Representation Learning in Diffusion and Flow-based Model: An Application Aspect25 Aug 2026
- 2026WorldToken: Time-First Sequence Modeling for Robotic Imitation Learning23 Aug 2026
- 2026ActSWM: Action-Sensitive World Models for Long-Horizon Planning in Open-World Games29 Jul 2026
- 2026Xiaomi-Robotics-1: Scaling Vision-Language-Action Models with over 100K Hours of Real-World Trajectories16 Jul 2026
- 2026World Action Verifier: Self-Improving World Models via Forward-Inverse Asymmetry2 Apr 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026LaWAM: Latent World Action Models for Efficient Dynamics-Aware Robot Policies
- 2026Do World Action Models Generalize Better than VLAs? A Robustness Study
- 2026ViDAL: A Visual Dynamics-Grounded Action Latent Space for Vision-Language-Action Models
- 2026Reconstruction or Semantics? What Makes a Latent Space Useful for Robotic World Models
- 2026Being-H0.7: A Latent World-Action Model from Egocentric Videos
- 2026AcrossWAM1.0:A Modular Latent World-Action Stack for Compact Robot Policies
- 2026WAVE-0: Bridging VLA Policies and WAMs with Lightweight Latent Future Prediction
- 2026AWM-VLA: AlignedWorld Modeling for Efficient and Explainable Vision-Language-Action Policies