@inproceedings{wang-etal-2026-towards-scalable,
title = "Towards Scalable Lightweight {GUI} Agents via Multi-role Orchestration",
author = "Wang, Ziwei and
Zheng, Junjie and
Yang, Leyang and
Zhou, Sheng and
Tang, Xiaoxuan and
Zhouhua, Fang and
Liu, Zhiwei and
Chen, Dajun and
Li, Yong and
Bu, Jiajun",
editor = "Liakata, Maria and
Moreira, Viviane P. and
Zhang, Jiajun and
Jurgens, David",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {ACL} 2026",
month = jul,
year = "2026",
address = "San Diego, California, United States",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1122/",
pages = "22359--22388",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-395-1",
abstract = "Autonomous Graphical User Interface (GUI) agents powered by Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) enable digital automation on end-user devices. While scaling both parameters and data has yielded substantial gains, advanced methods still suffer from prohibitive deployment costs on resource-constrained devices. When facing complex in-the-wild scenarios, lightweight GUI agents are bottlenecked by limited capacity and poor task scalability under end-to-end episodic learning, impeding multi-agent systems (MAS) adaptation, while training multiple skill-specific experts remains costly. Can we strike an effective trade-off in this cost{--}scalability dilemma, enabling lightweight MLLMs to participate in realistic GUI workflows? To address these challenges, we propose LAMO framework, which endows a lightweight MLLM with GUI-specific knowledge and task scalability, allowing multi-role orchestration to expand their capability boundary for GUI automation. LAMO combines role-oriented data synthesis with a two-stage training recipe: (i) supervised fine-tuning with Perplexity-Weighted Cross-Entropy optimization for knowledge distillation and visual perception enhancement, and (ii) reinforcement learning for role-oriented cooperative exploration. Via LAMO, we develop a task-scalable native GUI agent LAMO-3B supporting monolithic execution and MAS-style orchestration. When paired with advanced planners, as a plug-and-play policy executor, LAMO-3B can continuously benefit from planner advances, enabling a higher performance ceiling. Extensive static and online evaluations validate the effectiveness of our designs."
}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<modsCollection xmlns="http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3">
<mods ID="wang-etal-2026-towards-scalable">
<titleInfo>
<title>Towards Scalable Lightweight GUI Agents via Multi-role Orchestration</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Ziwei</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Wang</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Junjie</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Zheng</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Leyang</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Yang</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Sheng</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Zhou</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Xiaoxuan</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Tang</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Fang</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Zhouhua</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Zhiwei</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Liu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Dajun</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Chen</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Yong</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Li</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Jiajun</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Bu</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">author</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<dateIssued>2026-07</dateIssued>
</originInfo>
<typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource>
<relatedItem type="host">
<titleInfo>
<title>Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026</title>
</titleInfo>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Maria</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Liakata</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Viviane</namePart>
<namePart type="given">P</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Moreira</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">Jiajun</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Zhang</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<name type="personal">
<namePart type="given">David</namePart>
<namePart type="family">Jurgens</namePart>
<role>
<roleTerm authority="marcrelator" type="text">editor</roleTerm>
</role>
</name>
<originInfo>
<publisher>Association for Computational Linguistics</publisher>
<place>
<placeTerm type="text">San Diego, California, United States</placeTerm>
</place>
</originInfo>
<genre authority="marcgt">conference publication</genre>
<identifier type="isbn">979-8-89176-395-1</identifier>
</relatedItem>
<abstract>Autonomous Graphical User Interface (GUI) agents powered by Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) enable digital automation on end-user devices. While scaling both parameters and data has yielded substantial gains, advanced methods still suffer from prohibitive deployment costs on resource-constrained devices. When facing complex in-the-wild scenarios, lightweight GUI agents are bottlenecked by limited capacity and poor task scalability under end-to-end episodic learning, impeding multi-agent systems (MAS) adaptation, while training multiple skill-specific experts remains costly. Can we strike an effective trade-off in this cost–scalability dilemma, enabling lightweight MLLMs to participate in realistic GUI workflows? To address these challenges, we propose LAMO framework, which endows a lightweight MLLM with GUI-specific knowledge and task scalability, allowing multi-role orchestration to expand their capability boundary for GUI automation. LAMO combines role-oriented data synthesis with a two-stage training recipe: (i) supervised fine-tuning with Perplexity-Weighted Cross-Entropy optimization for knowledge distillation and visual perception enhancement, and (ii) reinforcement learning for role-oriented cooperative exploration. Via LAMO, we develop a task-scalable native GUI agent LAMO-3B supporting monolithic execution and MAS-style orchestration. When paired with advanced planners, as a plug-and-play policy executor, LAMO-3B can continuously benefit from planner advances, enabling a higher performance ceiling. Extensive static and online evaluations validate the effectiveness of our designs.</abstract>
<identifier type="citekey">wang-etal-2026-towards-scalable</identifier>
<location>
<url>https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1122/</url>
</location>
<part>
<date>2026-07</date>
<extent unit="page">
<start>22359</start>
<end>22388</end>
</extent>
</part>
</mods>
</modsCollection>
%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Towards Scalable Lightweight GUI Agents via Multi-role Orchestration
%A Wang, Ziwei
%A Zheng, Junjie
%A Yang, Leyang
%A Zhou, Sheng
%A Tang, Xiaoxuan
%A Zhouhua, Fang
%A Liu, Zhiwei
%A Chen, Dajun
%A Li, Yong
%A Bu, Jiajun
%Y Liakata, Maria
%Y Moreira, Viviane P.
%Y Zhang, Jiajun
%Y Jurgens, David
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026
%D 2026
%8 July
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C San Diego, California, United States
%@ 979-8-89176-395-1
%F wang-etal-2026-towards-scalable
%X Autonomous Graphical User Interface (GUI) agents powered by Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) enable digital automation on end-user devices. While scaling both parameters and data has yielded substantial gains, advanced methods still suffer from prohibitive deployment costs on resource-constrained devices. When facing complex in-the-wild scenarios, lightweight GUI agents are bottlenecked by limited capacity and poor task scalability under end-to-end episodic learning, impeding multi-agent systems (MAS) adaptation, while training multiple skill-specific experts remains costly. Can we strike an effective trade-off in this cost–scalability dilemma, enabling lightweight MLLMs to participate in realistic GUI workflows? To address these challenges, we propose LAMO framework, which endows a lightweight MLLM with GUI-specific knowledge and task scalability, allowing multi-role orchestration to expand their capability boundary for GUI automation. LAMO combines role-oriented data synthesis with a two-stage training recipe: (i) supervised fine-tuning with Perplexity-Weighted Cross-Entropy optimization for knowledge distillation and visual perception enhancement, and (ii) reinforcement learning for role-oriented cooperative exploration. Via LAMO, we develop a task-scalable native GUI agent LAMO-3B supporting monolithic execution and MAS-style orchestration. When paired with advanced planners, as a plug-and-play policy executor, LAMO-3B can continuously benefit from planner advances, enabling a higher performance ceiling. Extensive static and online evaluations validate the effectiveness of our designs.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1122/
%P 22359-22388
Markdown (Informal)
[Towards Scalable Lightweight GUI Agents via Multi-role Orchestration](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-acl.1122/) (Wang et al., Findings 2026)
ACL
- Ziwei Wang, Junjie Zheng, Leyang Yang, Sheng Zhou, Xiaoxuan Tang, Fang Zhouhua, Zhiwei Liu, Dajun Chen, Yong Li, and Jiajun Bu. 2026. Towards Scalable Lightweight GUI Agents via Multi-role Orchestration. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 2026, pages 22359–22388, San Diego, California, United States. Association for Computational Linguistics.