RESEARCH PAPER

From World Models to World Action Models: A Concise Tutorial for Robotics

Zhang, Xiaoxiong; Zeng, Xiong; Zhang, Wei

Classification

View four quadrants
Major category
Related resources
Architecture
Not applicable
Prediction paradigm
Not applicable
Source review status
Verified from primary sources

Category review. This 2026 tutorial compares multiple prediction-to-action interfaces without introducing its own model. A modern tutorial is a related reference resource, not pre-2026 foundational research or a reusable model component. Reading evidence

AT A GLANCE

Contribution

Rather than providing an exhaustive survey, this paper presents a concise tutorial on world models and world action models for robotics.

Abstract

Rather than providing an exhaustive survey, this paper presents a concise tutorial on world models and world action models for robotics. After reading the tutorial, readers should have a clear understanding of what constitutes a "world", how world models and world action models are defined, and what roles they play within robotic AI systems. The tutorial also develops a unified perspective for comparing representative approaches, such as World Labs' spatial intelligence models, Yann LeCun's JEPA framework, and NVIDIA's Cosmos platform, and clarifies how these models differ in their representations, predictive capabilities, and interaction mechanisms.

Affiliations

School of Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China; LimX Dynamics, Shenzhen, China