SwarmBench: Can Large Language Models Act as Agent Swarm Orchestrators?

Jinshan Gao, Zhuoran Jin, Tianyi Men, Kang Liu, Jun Zhao


Abstract
Large language model-based multi-agent systems are evolving from fixed interaction topologies toward dynamically orchestrated Agent Swarms. However, existing benchmarks are still largely based on single-agent or general-purpose agent tasks, making it difficult to systematically evaluate key orchestration capabilities. We propose SwarmBench, a benchmark that evaluates model performance from multiple perspectives, including accuracy, efficiency, cost, and process quality. Experimental results show that current models exhibit substantial differences in orchestration capability. These differences are reflected not only in final accuracy, efficiency, and cost, but also in the overall quality of the orchestration process itself. Based on these findings, we further propose SwarmExp, a simple yet effective method based on experience extraction and experience replay, which consistently improves the orchestration performance of large language models.
Anthology ID:
2026.findings-emnlp.662
Volume:
Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026
Month:
October
Year:
2026
Address:
Budapest, Hungary
Editors:
Hung-Yi Lee, Sunipa Dev, Jessy Li, Desmond Elliott
Venue:
Findings
SIG:
SIGDAT
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
13882–13902
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.662/
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Jinshan Gao, Zhuoran Jin, Tianyi Men, Kang Liu, and Jun Zhao. 2026. SwarmBench: Can Large Language Models Act as Agent Swarm Orchestrators?. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026, pages 13882–13902, Budapest, Hungary. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
SwarmBench: Can Large Language Models Act as Agent Swarm Orchestrators? (Gao et al., Findings 2026)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.662.pdf