VISA: Agentic Self-Evolving Data Synthesis for Multimodal Instruction Following
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent skill learning and evolution
also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)
Multimodal instruction-following models require training data that is accurate, diverse, verifiable, and challenging. Existing synthesis pipelines typically follow a one-pass generate-and-filter paradigm, discarding feedback from failed samples, verifier outcomes, and target-model errors. We present VISA (Visual Instruction Synthesis Agent), an agentic framework that reformulates multimodal instruction synthesis as a self-evolving loop. At each round, VISA analyzes an image to filter incompatible constraints and discover new verifiable ones, samples diversity- and difficulty-aware constraint sets from persistent memory, generates candidate instructions, and verifies the resulting samples with executable tools and structured large language model judges. Failed samples trigger diagnostic-guided recovery, while accepted samples are probed against the target model to estimate difficulty. The resulting verifier signals and target-model failure profiles are written back to memory, allowing subsequent rounds to adaptively expand the constraint space, reduce template repetition, and focus on unresolved model weaknesses. The same verifier contracts further provide reward signals for reinforcement learning without a separately trained reward model. Experiments on MM-IFEval show that VISA consistently improves multimodal instruction following over strong baselines, while preserving general multimodal capability across seven public benchmarks.
Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent skill learning and evolution, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 18 of its 29 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Aug 2026.
Builds on
18 of 29 references.
References · 18
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
- 2024LLaVA-OneVision: Easy Visual Task Transfercited by 2,669
- 2024HybridFlow: A Flexible and Efficient RLHF Frameworkcited by 1,980
- 2023ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIscited by 1,880
- 2023MathVista: Evaluating Mathematical Reasoning of Foundation Models in Visual Contextscited by 1,582
- 2025InternVL3.5: Advancing Open-Source Multimodal Models in Versatility, Reasoning, and Efficiencycited by 1,419
- 2019ZeRO: Memory Optimizations Toward Training Trillion Parameter Modelscited by 1,278
- 2023MM-Vet: Evaluating Large Multimodal Models for Integrated Capabilitiescited by 1,221
- 2023Instruction-Following Evaluation for Large Language Modelscited by 1,143
- 2016A Diagram Is Worth A Dozen Imagescited by 793
- 2024SWIFT:A Scalable lightWeight Infrastructure for Fine-Tuningcited by 345
- 2024MIA-Bench: Towards Better Instruction Following Evaluation of Multimodal LLMscited by 62
6 more
- 2024MMEvol: Empowering Multimodal Large Language Models with Evol-Instructcited by 42
- 2025MM-IFEngine: Towards Multimodal Instruction Followingcited by 41
- 2025Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable yet Noisy Rewards under Imperfect Verifierscited by 40
- 2024Multimodal Self-Instruct: Synthetic Abstract Image and Visual Reasoning Instruction Using Language Modelcited by 21
- 2026Empowering Reliable Visual-Centric Instruction Following in MLLMscited by 7
- 2024MM-Instruct: Generated Visual Instructions for Large Multimodal Model Alignmentcited by 5
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 1.
1 paper.
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026SEIF: Self-Evolving Reinforcement Learning for Instruction Following
- 2026ManimAgent: Self-Evolving Multimodal Agents for Visual Education
- 2026When Instructions Retrieve Trajectories: Diagnosing and Mitigating Generalization Failures in VLA Models
- 2026Towards Scalable RLVR: Multimodal Instruction Following Data Synthesis and Distillation
- 2026SPyCE: Skill-Policy Co-evolution for Multimodal Agents
- 2026SEES: A Self-Evolving Embodied System via Failure-Guided VLA Policy Adaptation
- 2026Endogenous Reprompting: Self-Evolving Cognitive Alignment for Unified Multimodal Models
- 2026Compiled Memory: Not More Information, but More Precise Instructions for Language Agents