Tool-Using Agents

Follow this topic Ask about this topic

Tool-using agents are language-model-based systems that choose and invoke external tools—such as search, code, databases, or graphical interfaces—and use the results to pursue goals over multiple steps. Research develops tool selection and retrieval, planning and decomposition, memory and reusable skills, and training with supervised trajectories or reinforcement learning; runtime harnesses add state tracking, verification, permissions, and recovery. Evaluation is shifting from isolated function calls and final answers toward stateful workflows, measuring task completion alongside cost, policy adherence, robustness to errors, and intermediate actions across web, terminal, office, and domain-specific tasks. A central tension is that broader autonomy and longer tool chains expand capability but also amplify grounding errors, stale state, unsafe side effects, and hidden tool failures, so reliable execution and calibrated stopping remain open problems.

Latest papers

289 papers54 papers in the last four weeks, up 74% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

Scaling Laws for Tool-Use Agents via Controllable Environment Synthesis
Oct 27, 2026Andrew Szot, Samira Abnar, Omar Attia +5Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Training
Apple
CASEL: Consequence-Aware Selective Execution for Reliable Long-Horizon Tool-Using Agents
Oct 27, 2026Yanyan Zhang, Fei Shen, Ting Yan +1Runtime Enforcement for AI Agents Tool-Using Agents
Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA · Feinity LLC Sacramento, CA 95816, USA · Computer Science Department Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755, USA +1
EREBOTS 4.0: A framework for conversational assistants with A2A agents and MCP tools
Oct 26, 2026Elia Pacioni, Davide Calvaresi, Andrei C. Coman +4Multi-Agent LLM Systems LLM Agents
HES-SO Valais-Wallis, Rue de Technopôle 10, 3960 Sierre, Switzerland · University of Extremadura, 06800, Mérida, Spain
AT-AT: Automatic Tool Optimization from Agent Traces
Oct 26, 2026Maya Ravichandran, Pragya Tripathi, Dharamendra Kumar +2Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Efficiency
Netflix
ProtAgent: Post-Training Compact Protein Tool Agents with Interaction-Level Credit Assignment
Oct 24, 2026Yuxiang Wang, Baojian Zhou, Qifang Zhao +3Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Training
ProbeID: Verifying MCP Tool Identity for LLM Agents under Registry Drift
Oct 24, 2026Guanxing Chen, Sining Zhang, Haohuai He +3LLM Agent Verification AI Agent Security
City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan), Dongguan, China · The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China · Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China +1
Trajectory2Gym: Decision-Grounded Compositional Interaction Synthesis for Tool-Use Agents
Oct 24, 2026Yihao Hu, Zhihao Wen, Yitong Lin +5Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Trajectory Synthesis
Westlake University (westlake.edu) · Ant International (ant-intl.com)
TACS-RF: Tool-driven Agentic Circuit Synthesis of RF and mmWave Modules
Oct 22, 2026Tristan Liang, Aravind NaguluTool-Using Agents Electronic Design Automation
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Oakland Campus, CA 94613
nnInteractive Agent: General-Purpose AI Agents as 3D Image Annotators
Oct 22, 2026Fabian Isensee, Constantin Ulrich Harsy, Maximilian Rokuss +3Medical AI Agents Tool-Using Agents
Division of Medical Image Computing (MIC), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany · National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, a partnership between the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD), Heidelberg, Germany · Helmholtz Imaging, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany +4
Robust Soft Skill Adaptation via Behavioral Localization in Tool-Using Agents
Oct 21, 2026Zijian Jiang, Xilu WangLLM Agent Skill Learning Prompt Tuning
School of Computer Science University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK
Back Up Before You Regret: Measuring Backup Awareness and Automating Backup in Coding Agents
Oct 20, 2026Xu Li, Simon Yu, Minzhou Pan +4AI Coding Agents Tool-Using Agents
Northeastern University · University of California, Berkeley · University of Chicago +1
Heartbeat Thinking: Speculative Reasoning and Tool Execution While Listening in Realtime Voice Agents
Oct 19, 2026Zhenyu Zhang, Kewei Fu, Yongqi Tong +4Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Efficiency
Ant International
TOMORI: A Tool-Orchestrated Mixing Operator for REAPER Interaction
Oct 18, 2026Yining Wang, Tianjiao LiTool-Using Agents Audio Editing
Not Every User Says It All: Training Tool-Using Agents Beyond Ideal Simulated Users
Oct 16, 2026Han Bao, Zheyuan Zhang, Kaiwen Shi +1Tool-Using Agents RL for Tool Use
University of Notre Dame
Agents' Last Doubt: Knowing When to Act and When to Step Back in Tool-Using Agents
Oct 16, 2026Qisai Liu, Qingyue Jiao, Bangwei Guo +7Tool-Using Agents LLM Decision-Making
Iowa State University · University of Notre Dame · Rutgers University +2
Reward Engine: Reward-Centric Self-Evolution for Open-Ended Tool Agents
Oct 16, 2026Litong Feng, Ji Qi, Yiran Cheng +3Tool-Using Agents Self-Improving Agents
Huawei openJiuwen Team · Department of Statistics and Data Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
Explore Separately, Adopt Selectively: Execution-Guided Tool Use over Large Tool Libraries
Oct 15, 2026Anna Mazhar, Seiji Maekawa, Nikita BhutaniTool Discovery for LLM Agents Tool-Using Agents
Cornell University · Megagon Labs
Trajectory-Level Speculation with Semantic Verification for Tool-Using Agents
Oct 15, 2026Zilin Wang, Yinhong Liu, Chao Chen +2Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Verification
LARK, HKUST (GZ) · Yinwang · University of Cambridge +1
TRACER: Trajectory-Aware Tool Retrieval for LLM Agents
Oct 15, 2026Tanish Kher, Sarvesh DK, Abedelkadir Asi +2Tool Selection for Language Model Agents LLM Tool Use
Microsoft
$τ$ -Emotion-Bench: Exposing the Interaction Fragility of LLM Agents through Real-World User Emotions
Oct 14, 2026Rishitosh Kumar Singh, Amir Saeidi, Shamanthak Hegde +2LLM Agent Evaluation Tool-Using Agents
Arizona State University
Knowledge Graphs as Files: An Agent Harness Where Tool Creation and Tool Use Co-Evolve
Oct 13, 2026Yuyang Bai, Yu Wang, Yu ZhangTool-Using Agents LLM Agent Harnesses
Texas A&M University · University of Georgia
Cowork-Gym: Synthesizing Interactive Work Environments at Scale
Oct 13, 2026Anni Zou, Cheng Chen, Jiaji Deng +18Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Training
Alibaba Token Foundry
MENTOR: Procedural Shielding of Tool-Using LLM Agents
Oct 12, 2026Ashwani Anand, Ivi Chatzi, Ritam Raha +1LLM Guardrails Tool-Using Agents
Max Planck Institute for Software Systems, Kaiserslautern, Germany · TNO-ESI, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
EvoSpatial: Experience-Driven Skill and Tool Evolution for Spatial Reasoning Agents
Oct 12, 2026Bin Yu, Shijie Lian, Zhaolong Shen +10Tool-Using Agents Spatial Reasoning
Harbin Institute of Technology · Zhongguancun Academy · DeepCybo +5
TRAP: Tool-result Replay Attack for Probing Misbinding in LLM Agents
Oct 12, 2026Yutong Zhi, Jie Zhang, Xiuqi Lu +2Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Safety
Tsinghua University · Shanghai AI Laboratory
ObsSpec: Accelerating Agentic Reinforcement Learning with Observation Speculation
Oct 11, 2026Kyle Montgomery, Wang Zhang, Chenguang WangAgentic RL Tool-Using Agents
UC Santa Cruz · ByteDance Inc.
Can agents whose sole duty is to keep humans alive be hijacked to kill? Delayed multi-turn derived-action trap attacks in simulated high-stakes environments
Oct 10, 2026Josef A. HabdankPrompt Injection Attacks on AI Agents Prompt Injection Attacks
DXC Technology
What Counts as the Same Task? Executable Contracts for Robustness Evaluation of Tool-Using Agents
Oct 10, 2026Shaikh Akib Shahriyar, MD. Akil Raihan Iftee, Armon Barton +1LLM Agent Evaluation Tool-Use Evaluation
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, USA · Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, USA
X-AgentRed: Red-Teaming Personal Agents in Evolving Multi-Service Ecosystems
Oct 9, 2026Yeonsung Jung, Zhiyuan Wang, Zifan Wang +5Automated Red Teaming AI Agent Security
Meta Reality Labs Research · Meta Superintelligence Labs · Meta +1
AgentTune: A Unified Training Lifecycle for Tool-Using LLM Agents
Oct 9, 2026R E Zera Marveen Lyngkhoi, Abhivansh Gupta, Vidushee Vats +3Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Training
Lexsi Labs

Oct 27, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

Scaling Laws for Tool-Use Agents via Controllable Environment Synthesis

Andrew Szot, Samira Abnar, Omar Attia, Abbas Kazerouni+4

Apple

Tool-Using Agents LLM Agent Training Synthetic Data Generation for LLM Agents Scaling Laws

Open paper AskPDF arXiv

We explore how to build performant large language model (LLM) tool-use agents that complete complex, multi-step tasks. Specifically, we study how data composition in synthetically generated tool-use environments affects the training of such agents. To do so, we propose the SynthAPI pipeline, which explicitly controls the diversity of generated environments along the axes of tools, tasks, and the databases on which the tools operate. By systematically varying SynthAPI's generation controls in 458,752 tasks across 849 trained models of four different sizes, we derive a scaling law that predicts downstream tool-use agent generalization based on the scale and composition of the synthesized environments. These predictable relationships reveal several lessons for scaling tool-use agent data. As data budgets grow, scaling tool and database diversity becomes more effective than increasing the number of tasks, and increasing data complexity yields larger gains. Scaling according to these findings yields agents that outperform models trained on data from prior work in large-scale tool-use agent and synthetic environment generation across four evaluation benchmarks.