EVA: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Video Agent

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Zhang, Yaolun, Wang, Ruohui, Wang, Jiahao, Tang, Yepeng, Zheng, Xuanyu, Duan, Haonan, Lu, Hao, Deng, Hanming, Lu, Lewei
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Zhang, Yaolun
Wang, Ruohui
Wang, Jiahao
Tang, Yepeng
Zheng, Xuanyu
Duan, Haonan
Lu, Hao
Deng, Hanming
Lu, Lewei
author_facet Zhang, Yaolun
Wang, Ruohui
Wang, Jiahao
Tang, Yepeng
Zheng, Xuanyu
Duan, Haonan
Lu, Hao
Deng, Hanming
Lu, Lewei
contents Video understanding with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) remains challenging due to the long token sequences of videos, which contain extensive temporal dependencies and redundant frames. Existing approaches typically treat MLLMs as passive recognizers, processing entire videos or uniformly sampled frames without adaptive reasoning. Recent agent-based methods introduce external tools, yet still depend on manually designed workflows and perception-first strategies, resulting in inefficiency on long videos. We present EVA, an Efficient Reinforcement Learning framework for End-to-End Video Agent, which enables planning-before-perception through iterative summary-plan-action-reflection reasoning. EVA autonomously decides what to watch, when to watch, and how to watch, achieving query-driven and efficient video understanding. To train such agents, we design a simple yet effective three-stage learning pipeline - comprising supervised fine-tuning (SFT), Kahneman-Tversky Optimization (KTO), and Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) - that bridges supervised imitation and reinforcement learning. We further construct high-quality datasets for each stage, supporting stable and reproducible training. We evaluate EVA on six video understanding benchmarks, demonstrating its comprehensive capabilities. Compared with existing baselines, EVA achieves a substantial improvement of 6-12% over general MLLM baselines and a further 1-3% gain over prior adaptive agent methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_22918
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle EVA: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Video Agent
Zhang, Yaolun
Wang, Ruohui
Wang, Jiahao
Tang, Yepeng
Zheng, Xuanyu
Duan, Haonan
Lu, Hao
Deng, Hanming
Lu, Lewei
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Video understanding with multimodal large language models (MLLMs) remains challenging due to the long token sequences of videos, which contain extensive temporal dependencies and redundant frames. Existing approaches typically treat MLLMs as passive recognizers, processing entire videos or uniformly sampled frames without adaptive reasoning. Recent agent-based methods introduce external tools, yet still depend on manually designed workflows and perception-first strategies, resulting in inefficiency on long videos. We present EVA, an Efficient Reinforcement Learning framework for End-to-End Video Agent, which enables planning-before-perception through iterative summary-plan-action-reflection reasoning. EVA autonomously decides what to watch, when to watch, and how to watch, achieving query-driven and efficient video understanding. To train such agents, we design a simple yet effective three-stage learning pipeline - comprising supervised fine-tuning (SFT), Kahneman-Tversky Optimization (KTO), and Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) - that bridges supervised imitation and reinforcement learning. We further construct high-quality datasets for each stage, supporting stable and reproducible training. We evaluate EVA on six video understanding benchmarks, demonstrating its comprehensive capabilities. Compared with existing baselines, EVA achieves a substantial improvement of 6-12% over general MLLM baselines and a further 1-3% gain over prior adaptive agent methods.
title EVA: Efficient Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Video Agent
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.22918