The paper surveys the emerging field of self‑improving AI systems that refine their behavior during deployment. It introduces a unified framework called feedback‑driven Test‑Time Intelligence (TTI) to connect two previously separate research directions: model state modification via test‑time signals and prediction enhancement through additional inference resources. The survey reviews key methods, applications across vision, language, multimodal learning, generative models, robotics, and healthcare, and outlines open challenges and a research roadmap.
By Shuaicheng Niu, Guohao Chen, Yaofo Chen, Zhiquan Wen, Jinwu Hu, Zeshuai Deng, Deyu Chen, Shuhai Zhang, Renjie Chen, Zihao Lian, Shoukai Xu, Gang Dai, Yunbei Zhang, Wei Luo, Yifan Zhang, Mingkui Tan, Cheng Deng
arXiv:2604. 00830v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Test-Time Learning (TTL) enables language agents to iteratively refine their performance through repeated interactions with the environment at inference time.
By Zhanzhi Lou, Hui Chen, Yibo Li, Qian Wang, Bryan Hooi
arXiv:2607. 03441v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: LLM agents often degrade over long episodes: as trajectories grow, they revisit explored states, repeat failed actions, and lose strategies that previously worked.
By Yanbo Wang, Jinhua Hao, Yuze Shi, Kun Yuan, Ming Sun
arXiv:2607. 08124v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: The behavior of an LLM agent is determined not only by the underlying model, but also by its harness: the executable program that constructs context, invokes tools, verifies intermediate results, and recovers from failures.
By Jun Nie, Yonggang Zhang, Jun Song, Qianshu Cai, Dahai Yu, Yike Guo, Xinmei Tian, Bo Han
arXiv:2605. 28390v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Test-time skill evolving is regarded as a new paradigm for enhancing deployed agentic systems.
By Xujun Li, Kehan Zheng, Mingyuan Zhao, Yize Geng, Jinfeng Zhou, Qi Zhu, Fei Mi, Lifeng Shang, Minlie Huang, Hongning Wang
arXiv:2607. 05202v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Agent self-evolution in long-horizon LLM systems is largely procedural: useful experience is not merely stored information, but reusable procedures for searching, debugging, and verification.
By Xingze Gao, Chuanrui Hu, Hongda Chen, Pengfei Yao, Zhao Wang, Yi Bai, Zhengwei Wu, Yunyun Han, Xiaofeng Cong, Jie Gui, Yafeng Deng, Teng Li