Agent as Policy for Robotic Manipulation
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Abstract (arXiv)
We demonstrate that a general-purpose agent can directly drive a physical robot throughout task execution without any task-specific or environment-specific training. We introduce Agent as Policy (AGP), which places task planning and execution under the agent's control. Given a task and a robot interface, the agent interprets visual evidence, writes executable programs, issues motion commands, and revises its actions in response to physical outcomes. This brings the agent's reasoning and programming capabilities into continuous interaction with the physical world. We study AGP across multiple real-world manipulation tasks spanning precision manipulation, dynamic motions, and deformable objects. These include assembly from human videos, block construction from goal images, dice flipping, targeted throwing, and bimanual towel folding. AGP achieves success rates of at least 80% in seven of eight task configurations and significantly outperforms previous agentic robot systems. We further study efficiency through task experience accumulation and find that reusing saved procedures and programs shortens execution time across repeated trials. These findings support a path for general-purpose agents to act as robot policies, extending their autonomy to physical manipulation through runtime reasoning, programming, and interaction.
Key facts. Cited by 6 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 28 of its 36 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 11 Sep 2026.
Builds on
28 of 36 references.
References · 28
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- 2023Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusioncited by 2,730
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16 more
- 2022Code as Policies: Language Model Programs for Embodied Controlcited by 1,172
- 2024OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environmentscited by 1,134
- 2022Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Modelscited by 1,057
- 2024OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agentscited by 956
- 2022ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Modelscited by 598
- 2026World Action Models are Zero-shot Policiescited by 411
- 2020Integrated Task and Motion Planningcited by 281
- 2025Unified Video Action Modelcited by 195
- 2024RoboCodeX: Multimodal Code Generation for Robotic Behavior Synthesiscited by 55
- 2026ASPIRE: Agentic /Skills Discovery for Roboticscited by 44
- 2026Harness VLA: Steering Frozen VLAs into Reliable Manipulation Primitives via Memory-Guided Agentscited by 37
- 2026RoboClaw: An Agentic Framework for Scalable Long-Horizon Robotic Taskscited by 30
- 2024RoboScript: Code Generation for Free-Form Manipulation Tasks across Real and Simulationcited by 24
- 2024AutoMate: Specialist and Generalist Assembly Policies over Diverse Geometriescited by 20
- 2026GaP: A Graph-as-Policy Multi-Agent Self-Learning Harness For Variational Automation Taskscited by 11
- 2026Addressing the Orchestration Gap in Generalist Robots via Physical Agencycited by 7
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 6.
6 papers.
- 2026An Unexpected Robot Policy: Early Evaluations of GPT-6 Astra on RoboDojo and Beyondcited by 8
- 2026World Action Agent: Harnessing VLMs for Robot Manipulation via World Action Rehearsalcited by 1
- 2026Coding Agents with an Obstacle-Aware Harness for Safe Robot Manipulationcited by 0
- 2026CAPEX: Efficiently Distilling Foundation Model Behavior into Deployable Robot Policies through Experience-Adaptive Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026Real2Gym: Building Gyms from Videos, Bringing Skills to Robotscited by 0
- 2026SimEX: Simulation-Integrated Robotics AutoResearchcited by 0
- 2026SimEX: Simulation-Integrated Robotics AutoResearch30 Sep 2026
- 2026Real2Gym: Building Gyms from Videos, Bringing Skills to Robots29 Sep 2026
- 2026CAPEX: Efficiently Distilling Foundation Model Behavior into Deployable Robot Policies through Experience-Adaptive Reasoning26 Sep 2026
- 2026World Action Agent: Harnessing VLMs for Robot Manipulation via World Action Rehearsal24 Sep 2026
- 2026An Unexpected Robot Policy: Early Evaluations of GPT-6 Astra on RoboDojo and Beyond21 Sep 2026
- 2026Coding Agents with an Obstacle-Aware Harness for Safe Robot Manipulation17 Sep 2026