Multi18 [work] -

We introduced Multi18, a framework for multi-agent coordination across 18 distinct domains. By combining per-domain specialization with a global constraint-satisfaction layer, Multi18 outperforms monolithic and lower-agent-count baselines. The design principle of choosing N based on empirical complexity bounds (here, N=18) may generalize to other “multi-N” systems in applied AI.

Why 18? Empirically, we found that increasing the number of agents beyond 18 (e.g., to 24 or 32) led to diminishing returns and higher communication overhead ((O(n^2)) in graph edges). Below 12, the system underfit the diversity of constraints. The number 18 thus represents a “sweet spot” for mid-scale multi-domain problems—large enough to capture real-world heterogeneity, small enough for tractable coordination. multi18

Results (averaged over 5 seeds) :

Real-world AI systems increasingly operate across multiple domains (e.g., healthcare, finance, logistics) while adhering to diverse constraints (e.g., legal, ethical, latency). We propose Multi18 , a modular framework designed for environments characterized by exactly 18 distinct operational modalities. The framework combines a lightweight negotiation protocol among specialized agents, a shared latent space for cross-domain state representation, and a constraint-satisfaction layer. Initial experiments in 18 simulated environments (varying resource availability and regulatory strictness) show that Multi18 reduces task-switching overhead by 37% and improves constraint adherence by 28% compared to monolithic baselines. Why 18

Multi18’s advantage was most pronounced in domains 14–18 (high regulatory strictness), where the arbiter prevented 94% of violations without aggressive reward shaping. The number 18 thus represents a “sweet spot”