aiqbench analysis
MM-BrowseComp introduces a critical new benchmark that exposes significant gaps in current AI agents' ability to reason over multimodal web content, moving beyond text-only evaluation. The study reveals that even top-tier models struggle with visual prompts, underscoring the urgent need for improved multimodal retrieval and reasoning capabilities in next-generation browsing tools. This work sets a rigorous standard for assessing how effectively AI systems can synthesize information from images and videos alongside text.
MM-BrowseComp: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Multimodal Browsing Agents
arXiv:2508.13186v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: AI agents with advanced reasoning and tool-use capabilities have demonstrated impressive performance in web browsing for deep search. However, existing benchmarks such as BrowseComp primarily focus on textual content, overlooking the prevalence of multimodal content. To bridge this gap, we introduce MM-BrowseComp, a novel benchmark comprising 400 challenging, hand-crafted questions designed to evaluate multimodal retrieval and reasoning capabilities. Unlike prior work, MM-BrowseComp incorporates visual prompts and necessitates the extraction of key evidence from web images and videos to complete questions, rendering text-only approaches insufficient. Additionally, we provide a verified checklist for each question, enabling fine-grained analysis of multimodal dependencies and reasoning paths. Our comprehensive evaluation of 27 state-of-the-art models reveals that even leading models like GPT-5-High with tools achieve only 24.25\% accuracy, highlighting the suboptimal multimodal browsing capabilities, establishing MM-BrowseComp as a rigorous new standard for the field.
Abstract:AI agents with advanced reasoning and tool-use capabilities have demonstrated impressive performance in web browsing for deep search. However, existing benchmarks such as BrowseComp primarily focus on textual content, overlooking the prevalence of multimodal content. To bridge this gap, we introduce MM-BrowseComp, a novel benchmark comprising 400 challenging, hand-crafted questions designed to evaluate multimodal retrieval and reasoning capabilities. Unlike prior work, MM-BrowseComp incorporates visual prompts and necessitates the extraction of key evidence from web images and videos to complete questions, rendering text-only approaches insufficient. Additionally, we provide a verified checklist for each question, enabling fine-grained analysis of multimodal dependencies and reasoning paths. Our comprehensive evaluation of 27 state-of-the-art models reveals that even leading models like GPT-5-High with tools achieve only 24.25\% accuracy, highlighting the suboptimal multimodal browsing capabilities, establishing MM-BrowseComp as a rigorous new standard for the field.
EMNLP 2026. The first two authors contribute equally, 20 pages, repo at this https URL
Computation and Language (cs.CL); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
arXiv:2508.13186 [cs.CL]
(or arXiv:2508.13186v2 [cs.CL] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2508.13186 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite
arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.
Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.
Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs.
Full text under the publisher's open licence · 255 words
Related coverage

Gemini 4 Argon: Built to solve your hardest problems
Google DeepMind · Oct 13, 2026
Reward-Driven LLM Agent Workflows: Synthesizing POMDP Routing and Self-Correction for Autonomous Decision-Making
arXiv · Jul 21, 2026
MemDreamer: Decoupling Perception and Reasoning for Long Video Understanding via Hierarchical Graph Memory and Agentic Retrieval Mechanism
arXiv · Jun 8, 2026
PlanBench-V: A Spatial Planning Map Benchmark for Vision-Language Models
arXiv · Jun 5, 2026