Towards Embodied Agentic AI: Review and Classification of LLM- and VLM-Driven Robot Autonomy and Interaction

Foundation models, including large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs), have recently enabled novel approaches to robot autonomy and human-robot interfaces. In parallel, vision-language-action models (VLAs) or large behavior models (BLMs) are increasing the dexterity and capabilities of robotic systems. This survey paper focuses on those words advancing towards agentic applications and architectures. This includes initial efforts exploring GPT-style interfaces to tooling, as well as more complex system where AI agents are coordinators, planners, perception actors, or generalist interfaces. Such agentic architectures allow robots to reason over natural language instructions, invoke APIs, plan task sequences, or assist in operations and diagnostics. In addition to peer-reviewed research, due to the fast-evolving nature of the field, we highlight and include community-driven projects, ROS packages, and industrial frameworks that show emerging trends. We propose a taxonomy for classifying model integration approaches and present a comparative analysis of the role that agents play in different solutions in today's literature.