Zhengyang Zhao, Shengjie Ye, Lu Ma, Hao Liang, Hengyi Feng, Wentao Zhang
AI agents are increasingly being tasked with automating AI research itself, particularly the critical post-training phase that transforms base LLMs into aligned assistants. However, recent evaluations reveal that even frontier agents struggle to perform this task. While the success of post-training fundamentally relies on acquiring high-quality data, relying on agents to autonomously curate targeted training datasets from the open web introduces severe challenges. Executing the long-horizon tasks of searching, filtering, and balancing data within noisy web environments frequently overwhelms an agent's limited context, ultimately leading to degraded dataset quality and suboptimal downstream training performance. To bridge this gap, we introduce Andes (Agent Native Data Evolving Synthesis), a framework that reimagines data generation as a plug-and-play \emph{agent skill}. Rather than forcing agents to devise complex data-gathering strategies from scratch, \textsc{Andes} provides an intelligent abstraction layer. By leveraging a self-evolving World Tree routing mechanism and actionable diagnostic reports, it allows trainer agents to dynamically steer data synthesis through an interactive, closed-loop interface. We demonstrate that under strict compute constraints, equipping foundationally weaker agents with Andes improves automated alignment, securing state-of-the-art performance on PostTrainBench and robust cross-task generalization. Our project is available at https://github.com/zzy1127/ANDES.
ANDES introduces a conceptual reframing of synthetic data generation for LLM post-training: instead of treating data curation as an external, static pipeline or a complex web-scraping task, it encapsulates it as a plug-and-play tool-calling interface for trainer agents. The framework has four key mechanisms: (1) target-driven capability decomposition, (2) a self-evolving "World Tree" routing mechanism that maps task descriptions to hierarchical topic→theme→scenario nodes, (3) a two-stage QA generation and refinement pipeline with effort-score filtering, and (4) a report-driven closed-loop feedback mechanism that allows the trainer agent to iteratively adjust synthesis configurations.
The problem addressed is genuinely important: autonomous post-training agents are bottlenecked by data acquisition quality, and existing approaches either require complex web navigation (high capability threshold) or use rigid offline scripts (no dynamic adaptation). ANDES proposes a middle path by abstracting away data synthesis complexity behind a standardized tool interface.
The paper is highly timely. PostTrainBench was very recently introduced (2026), and the paper directly addresses findings from that benchmark showing frontier agents struggle with autonomous post-training. The intersection of agentic AI and data-centric AI is a rapidly growing area. The framing of "data synthesis as an agent skill" aligns with current trends toward tool-augmented LLM agents.
ANDES presents a well-engineered system that addresses a real bottleneck in autonomous post-training. The conceptual contribution of framing data synthesis as an agent skill is valuable and likely to influence future work. The empirical results are strong, though attribution between the scaffold and ANDES proper could be cleaner. The paper would benefit from deeper analysis of failure modes, cost breakdowns, and sensitivity to the synthesis LLM's capability.
Generated Jun 2, 2026
Paper 2 introduces a new framework (ANDES) that improves autonomous instruction alignment under compute constraints and reports SOTA results on a dedicated benchmark with cross-task generalization, suggesting direct downstream performance gains and practical utility for automated post-training pipelines. Its “agent skill” abstraction and closed-loop data synthesis could influence a broad set of agentic training and alignment workflows, making it timely and widely applicable. Paper 1 provides a valuable benchmark and diagnostic analysis for SciVis literacy in MLLMs, but is primarily evaluative and narrower in immediate real-world leverage compared to a method that advances alignment automation.
ANDES addresses a fundamental challenge in automated AI alignment—autonomous data curation for post-training—by introducing a novel framework that reimagines data generation as a reusable agent skill. Its self-evolving routing mechanism and closed-loop interface represent genuine methodological innovation with broad applicability across AI development. It achieves SOTA on PostTrainBench and demonstrates cross-task generalization. ClinicalMC, while valuable, is primarily a benchmark contribution for a specific domain (clinical decision-making) with more incremental novelty. ANDES has wider impact potential across the rapidly growing AI agents and alignment research fields.
Paper 1 presents a highly impactful real-world application (lung cancer early detection) using a novel self-evolving multi-agent system. By addressing the complexities of multimodal EHRs and combining non-parametric memory with MARL, it advances clinical AI reasoning. While Paper 2 offers a valuable tool for LLM alignment, Paper 1's direct potential to improve patient outcomes and its innovative methodological approach to medical time-series data give it a higher potential for broad societal and scientific impact.
ANDES addresses the emerging and highly impactful problem of autonomous AI alignment through agentic data synthesis, which has broader implications for AI research automation. Its framework as a reusable 'agent skill' with self-evolving mechanisms is more novel and generalizable. It achieves state-of-the-art on an established benchmark (PostTrainBench) and demonstrates cross-task generalization. Paper 1, while addressing a real problem in constraint following, proposes a more incremental solution (graph-based constraint modeling) with narrower scope. ANDES is more timely given the rapid growth of AI agent research and automated ML pipelines.
Paper 2 likely has higher scientific impact: it targets a timely, high-demand problem (autonomous post-training/alignment), proposes a system-level framework with concrete tooling, and reports state-of-the-art results plus open-source release, enabling rapid adoption and follow-on work. Its applications span agentic data generation, alignment, and automated ML pipelines, giving broad cross-field relevance. Paper 1 appears theoretically novel and potentially important for causal inference methodology, but its immediate applicability and breadth may be narrower and uptake slower compared to an empirically validated, deployable alignment/data-synthesis framework.
Paper 2 likely has higher impact: it targets a timely, fast-growing area (agentic post-training and instruction alignment) with a concrete framework, open-source release, and benchmarked SOTA gains plus cross-task generalization—supporting immediate real-world adoption in LLM training pipelines. Its potential breadth spans alignment, data synthesis, agent tooling, and evaluation. Paper 1 is methodologically rigorous and valuable theoretically, but its contribution is more incremental (asynchronous variants + O(1/sqrt(t)) rates) within a mature optimization literature, with narrower near-term visibility outside ML systems/optimization.
Paper 1 addresses a critical bottleneck in AI development: automating post-training alignment via AI agents. By enabling agents to effectively synthesize high-quality data, it has the potential to accelerate the pace of AI research itself. While Paper 2 offers valuable methodological advancements in bioinformatics and drug discovery, the compounding impact and broad applicability of automating AI alignment in Paper 1 presents a higher potential for rapid, cross-disciplinary scientific and technological transformation.
Paper 1 likely has higher impact: it proposes a concrete framework (ANDES) that improves autonomous post-training/alignment under compute constraints, with demonstrated state-of-the-art results on a benchmark and open-sourced tooling—high immediate applicability and timeliness as agentic post-training becomes central. Its plug-and-play abstraction could generalize across agent trainers and data synthesis settings. Paper 2 offers valuable, rigorous interpretability measurements of decision dynamics, but is primarily descriptive/diagnostic with less direct downstream utility and narrower immediate real-world deployment impact.
Paper 1 likely has higher impact: it targets a timely, high-leverage bottleneck (autonomous post-training data generation for alignment), proposes an agent-native, reusable framework, and demonstrates state-of-the-art gains on a recognized benchmark (PostTrainBench) with cross-task generalization under compute constraints—suggesting methodological rigor and broad applicability to many LLM training pipelines. Paper 2 is conceptually valuable for AI ethics, but its contribution is more niche (a 450-case dataset and classification framework) and may generalize less broadly than tooling that directly improves automated alignment workflows.
Paper 2 addresses the highly timely and impactful problem of automating AI alignment through autonomous data synthesis for LLM post-training. It introduces a practical framework (ANDES) with demonstrated state-of-the-art results on benchmarks, has immediate real-world applications in scaling AI development, and sits at the intersection of multiple hot research areas (AI agents, LLM alignment, data curation). Paper 1, while theoretically rigorous in unifying belief change frameworks, addresses a more niche area in formal epistemology/knowledge representation with a narrower audience and fewer immediate practical applications.