Toward a Modular Architecture for Embedded AI Agent Systems at the Edge

The design space of agentic AI inference spans two extremes: frontier large language models (LLMs), typically hosted in the cloud and offering strong performance across a wide range of tasks at substantially high cost, and more cost-efficient small language models (SLMs), which are amenable to on-device inference. Hybrid multi-agent systems (MASs) combining on-device and cloud models offer a promising middle ground, but they also introduce a complex and poorly understood design space in which task accuracy, monetary cost, and edge energy consumption are tightly coupled; in the absence of general design principles, hybrid components, although not the most prevalent choice, are typically introduced through ad hoc decisions tailored to specific domains. In this work, we examine this design space more systematically. We adapt two representative MAS architectures to support hybrid inference and study how individual design choices shift the operating point along the Pareto frontier of power, cost, and performance. Our findings paint a nuanced picture of hybrid MAS design: while SLMs can effectively benefit from LLM assistance, the optimal architecture is highly task-dependent, and greater frontier-level compute does not consistently translate to better performance.

Embodied intelligent virtual agents are expected to operate as persistent, adaptive, and context-aware entities within complex virtual and Metaverse worlds. However, implementing cognitively capable agents in such environments is conceptually and technologically challenging. Among a range of blueprints and development approaches, the Cognitive Embodied Agent Architecture (CEAA) has been developed as an implementation-oriented framework for architecting components of perception, memory, reasoning, planning, and embodied action. Considering the recent advances in edge computing and generative AI language models, this paper explores the use of Small Language Models (SLMs) to support edge-based operation of selected CEAA components, focusing on "Think" and "Memory" as processes central to cognitive orchestration and persistence of virtual agents in interactive virtual worlds. An edge-based virtual agent gateway system was developed and evaluated on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX using Qwen2.5 models of different sizes, exploring the system's capability to process service requests and handle memory-driven conversations. A series of simulation experiments evaluated routing accuracy, memory-read performance, and latency, demonstrating an SLM-driven prototype agent system that partially implements selected CEAA processes to support the development of embodied agents whose cognitive "brain" can operate efficiently and contextually for interactive experiences in immersive virtual worlds.

Deploying lightweight Large Language Model (LLM) agents on edge servers can reduce latency and move agentic services closer to users, but resource-constrained edge models often struggle with long-horizon tasks that require persistent memory, subgoal tracking, and reflection. Fine-tuning edge models after deployment is costly and difficult to scale across heterogeneous nodes, while purely local memory leaves agents with isolated experience and growing prompt context. We propose \textsc{CoMIC}, a parameter-update-free cloud-edge framework for Collaborative Memory and Insights Circulation. \textsc{CoMIC} follows a \textit{Centralized Reflection, Decentralized Execution} design: edge agents execute locally using subgoal-oriented hierarchical memory and selective re-expansion of relevant histories, while a cloud-side LLM critic asynchronously evaluates completed trajectories, filters reusable experience, and aggregates cross-agent guidance keyed by semantic subgoal identifiers. Across five long-horizon agent tasks spanning symbolic planning and text interaction, \textsc{CoMIC} improves progress rate and action grounding for weak edge agents and yields task-dependent success-rate gains without updating model parameters.