ResearchResearch paperReinforcement Learning · Training & Scaling · Large Language Models1 source · Oct 16, 2026

MultiAgent-OPD: End-to-End Training of Hierarchical Multi-Agent Systems with On-Policy Distillation

We present MultiAgent-OPD, which combines on-policy distillation with reinforcement learning to jointly train a shared-parameter Leader-Searcher-Answerer team end to end.

Key points

  • In a hierarchical multi-agent system, a Leader assigns tasks and subagents carry them out.
  • Jointly training the Leader and the subagents is difficult because a final answer gives only indirect feedback to the subagents.
  • We first train a Teacher in a Searcher-Answerer workflow using answer correctness.
  • Across seven datasets, the trained system reaches 38.68% macro avg@4, exceeding Prompted Critic by 4.06 percentage points and C-MAS + RL, the trained cascaded multiagent system, by 2.61 percentage points.

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