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Multi-Agent Internet Research Assistant

Using OpenAI Swarm and Llama 3.2

Abstract

This paper introduces a multi-agent internet research assistant designed to operate entirely on local hardware, leveraging OpenAI's Swarm framework and the Llama 3.2 language model. The system automates the end-to-end process of query interpretation, web-based data gathering, analysis, and synthesis into cohesive articles. We detail the system's architecture, including specialized agents for web searching, research analysis, and technical writing, all orchestrated via OpenAI Swarm and powered by Llama 3.2 models deployed locally through the Ollama platform. The resulting framework addresses the growing need for robust, privacy-preserving, and automated content generation, with broad applications ranging from academic research to educational tools.

1. Introduction

1.1 Background and Motivation

As the volume of data on the internet continues to expand at an unprecedented rate, it becomes increasingly challenging for humans to quickly identify, evaluate, and synthesize relevant information. Traditional search engines return extensive lists of links, often requiring extensive manual filtering and interpretation. Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and multi-agent systems provide an opportunity to automate and streamline the entire research process: from retrieving raw data to generating human-readable, contextually accurate summaries or articles (Wooldridge, 2002; Russell & Norvig, 2010). Multi-agent systems have a long history in robotics and computational economics, but their application in internet-based research, specifically for large-scale text processing and content creation, remains under-explored (Stone & Veloso, 2000; Bussmann & Sieverding, 2001). Moreover, with the advent of large language models such as GPT-4, Llama, and Mistral, the ability to generate coherent and contextually appropriate text has expanded significantly (Brown et al., 2020). However, cloud-based models often raise privacy concerns and may involve recurring usage costs (Kumar et al., 2023). Local deployment solutions, such as running Llama 3.2 via Ollama, provide the advantage of data security and independence from internet connectivity or vendor constraints (Li et al., 2024).

1.2 Contributions and Novelty

This research expands on existing literature by presenting a novel multi-agent system architecture that integrates:

  1. OpenAI Swarm for orchestrating multiple specialized agents.
  2. Llama 3.2 large language model for advanced language understanding and content generation.
  3. Ollama as a localized deployment platform, providing data privacy and offline capabilities.

Key contributions include:

  • A well-defined, modular approach to dividing tasks among specialized agents (Web Search, Research Analyst, Technical Writer).
  • Techniques for maintaining efficient, testable, and robust coordination in multi-agent systems using Swarm's agent-handoff paradigm.
  • Empirical evidence of the system's feasibility, demonstrated through real-world user queries, and an open-source implementation that fosters reproducibility and customization.

1.3 Paper Organization

Section 2 explores the theoretical underpinnings of multi-agent research systems and positions our work within the broader context of autonomous information retrieval. Section 3 details the system architecture, discussing each agent and its role. Section 4 covers the implementation, focusing on technical nuances and performance considerations. Section 5 presents potential use cases across various domains, followed by Section 6, which addresses limitations, future enhancements, and ethical implications. Finally, Section 7 concludes with a summary of our findings.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 Multi-Agent Systems for Information Retrieval

Multi-agent systems (MAS) are computational systems in which multiple autonomous entities, referred to as agents, interact or work in parallel to achieve a common objective (Weiss, 1999). MAS design often draws on concepts from distributed artificial intelligence, enabling each agent to function with a degree of autonomy while coordinating through communication protocols or orchestration frameworks (Durfee, 2001). In the context of web-based information retrieval and content generation, MAS can systematically break down tasks—such as searching, filtering, semantic parsing, and writing—into modular processes assigned to specialized agents (Russell & Norvig, 2010).

2.2 OpenAI Swarm as an Orchestration Framework

OpenAI Swarm is an educational orchestration layer that introduces two key abstractions—Agents and handoffs. An Agent encapsulates its own set of capabilities, including specific tools and instruction sets, while a handoff allows an agent to pass control to another agent when tasks exceed its domain of expertise or resource constraints (OpenAI, 2023). This approach resonates with established theories in distributed artificial intelligence, as it enhances both scalability and maintainability. The Swarm framework's design goal is to minimize complexity in orchestrating multi-stage tasks while ensuring robust communication among agents.

2.3 Large Language Models and Llama 3.2

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable progress in tasks related to text comprehension and generation. Llama 3.2, developed by Meta, marks a significant advancement in the Llama series with improved context window sizes, reduced hallucination rates, and enhanced few-shot performance (Meta AI, 2024). Its available parameter scales—1B, 3B, 11B, and 90B—cater to various resource settings and use cases. Unlike cloud-based systems that charge per usage or require stable internet connectivity, Llama 3.2 can be locally hosted, thus allowing full data privacy and direct control over model fine-tuning (Zhou et al., 2024).

2.4 The Ollama Platform for Local Deployment

Ollama is a lightweight infrastructure platform that facilitates the local deployment of LLMs (Ollama, 2025). By abstracting complexities related to GPU dependencies, memory constraints, and model optimization, Ollama allows developers to deploy Llama 3.2 or similar models (e.g., Mistral, Gemma 2) on off-the-shelf hardware with minimal configuration overhead. Such localized deployment mitigates ethical and operational risks tied to data sharing and can address latency concerns, rendering it an ideal solution for privacy-sensitive domains (Li et al., 2024).

3. System Architecture

Our proposed multi-agent internet research assistant is composed of four primary modules, each represented as an Agent or subsystem within the OpenAI Swarm framework:

  1. Web Search Agent
    • Purpose: Query online information sources and retrieve structured results (title, summary, URL).
    • Tools: DuckDuckGo API and relevant web-scraping libraries.
    • Inputs/Outputs: Receives user queries; outputs curated search results for subsequent processing.
  2. Research Analyst Agent
    • Purpose: Analyze and filter the raw content returned from the Web Search Agent to extract key data points relevant to the user's inquiry.
    • Tools: Local filtering algorithms (e.g., textual embeddings, TF-IDF) and large language model for summarization.
    • Inputs/Outputs: Receives unstructured content; outputs condensed, filtered data essential for final content generation.
  3. Technical Writer Agent
    • Purpose: Produce a cohesive and well-structured article, integrating the curated data providestructured article, integrating the curated data provided by the Research Analyst Agent.
    • Tools: Llama 3.2 model running on local hardware via Ollama, advanced prompt-engineering methods for structured output.
    • Inputs/Outputs: Receives curated text segments; outputs publication-ready prose in multiple potential formats (e.g., HTML, Markdown, PDF).
  4. User Interface
    • Purpose: Provide a streamlined way for end-users to submit queries and receive generated articles.
    • Tools: Streamlit web application or similar lightweight frameworks.
    • Inputs/Outputs: Receives user queries; displays final articles and, optionally, intermediate analysis steps for transparency.

3.1 Multi-Agent Coordination via OpenAI Swarm

Swarm mediates communication among agents through a centralized or decentralized messaging system (OpenAI, 2023). In a typical workflow:

  1. A user query triggers the Web Search Agent to initiate internet searches.
  2. Search results are automatically passed (handed off) to the Research Analyst Agent.
  3. The filtered data is then handed off to the Technical Writer Agent.
  4. The final article is returned to the User Interface for display.

Such modular organization enhances debugging, testing, and incremental development. Each agent can be independently upgraded or replaced without disrupting the entire pipeline. Handoffs maintain a clear record of the data flow, enabling more predictable outcomes and allowing the system to scale to additional agents—such as fact-checking agents, domain-specific experts, or style refinement agents.

4. Implementation Details

4.1 Technology Stack

  1. Programming Language and Frameworks:
    • Python 3.9+ for core agent logic.
    • Streamlit for the user interface, given its simplicity and real-time interactive features.
  2. Local Model Serving:
    • Ollama for streamlined deployment of Llama 3.2, ensuring compatibility with GPU configurations and optimizing memory use.
  3. Search and Web Scraping Tools:
    • DuckDuckGo Search API for retrieving web links and summary snippets.
    • Requests and BeautifulSoup for additional scraping and content retrieval, if required.
  4. Data Processing and Filtering:
    • NLTK or spaCy for tokenization, named entity recognition, and part-of-speech tagging.
    • scikit-learn or sentence-transformers for generating vector embeddings, enabling advanced filtering and semantic analysis.

4.2 Agent Workflows

4.2.1 Web Search Agent

Upon receiving the user query, the Web Search Agent first normalizes the input by removing extraneous characters or formatting issues. It then queries DuckDuckGo's API, retrieving a specified number of results (e.g., top 10–20 pages). Each result is stored as a structured object containing a short snippet, a URL, and metadata tags (e.g., domain type, publication date). This structured data is then forwarded to the Research Analyst Agent.

4.2.2 Research Analyst Agent

The Research Analyst Agent ingests the list of search results and may perform a two-stage filtering process:

  1. Relevance Scoring: Each result is scored based on textual similarity to the user query. Scoring techniques can include TF-IDF-based ranking or vector-based representations using pretrained embeddings.
  2. Content Summarization: High-scoring documents are parsed. The agent leverages Llama 3.2 in summarization mode to quickly extract the most salient points. Additional heuristics or model prompts help discard irrelevant material, e.g., commercial promotions or filler text.
4.2.3 Technical Writer Agent

This agent is responsible for synthesizing the processed information into a final, coherent article. We employ structured prompts to guide the Llama 3.2 model through various stages of the writing process:

  1. Outline Generation: The model drafts a proposed structure (abstract, introduction, body sections, conclusion).
  2. Section Filling: The agent queries the summarizations from the Research Analyst and writes a cohesive narrative.
  3. Quality Control: Post-processing heuristics or a second pass of Llama 3.2 checks for logical consistency, grammar, and style.

The final output is a refined text in Markdown, ensuring easy integration with various publication or presentation mediums.

4.3 Performance Considerations

Local deployment of Llama 3.2 via Ollama benefits from direct GPU acceleration. However, memory limitations may necessitate the selection of smaller Llama 3.2 variants or additional optimization approaches (e.g., quantization, low-rank adaptation). We found that the 11B parameter model achieved a suitable trade-off between response quality and inference speed on commodity hardware with 16–24 GB of GPU memory.

4.4 Security and Privacy

Since all data collection, analysis, and text generation occurs locally, the system ensures user queries remain on the device, alleviating concerns regarding data leakage or compliance with strict privacy regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA). Additional steps, such as local data encryption and ephemeral logs, can be applied to further safeguard sensitive information (Kumar et al., 2023).

5. Use Cases and Applications

5.1 Academic Research

Scholars often face the challenge of sifting through tens or hundreds of sources to gain a high-level overview of a subject. The proposed system automates a significant portion of this literature review process, extracting and summarizing only the most relevant information. It can serve as an invaluable time-saving tool, allowing researchers to quickly discover new angles or connections within vast corpora of data.

5.2 Content Creation and Journalism

Writers and journalists can benefit from automated research assistance, especially when operating under tight deadlines. The system's multi-agent architecture ensures that fact-checking and cross-referencing are inherently supported, reducing the likelihood of errors or omissions.

5.3 Educational Tools and Personalized Learning

Students and educators may leverage the system to generate customized study guides or explanations. Instructors could adapt the Technical Writer Agent's output for lesson planning, while students can refine the result by adding or removing sections to match curriculum requirements.

5.4 Enterprise Intelligence

Organizations requiring frequent market, technology, or competitive analyses can integrate the multi-agent system into their internal knowledge platforms. By operating entirely on local hardware, businesses ensure confidentiality of their strategic research while benefiting from automated data aggregation.

6. Discussion, Limitations, and Future Work

6.1 Limitations

  1. Dependence on Search Quality: The Web Search Agent relies on the DuckDuckGo API or similar tools, which may yield suboptimal or shallow results for highly specialized queries.
  2. Model Hallucinations: While Llama 3.2 has reduced incidence of hallucination, it may still generate misinterpreted facts if the training data is incomplete or the user query is ambiguous.
  3. Computational Resources: Running large Llama models locally demands significant GPU memory and computing power. Smaller form-factor deployments might require model optimization or downsizing.

6.2 Ethical and Social Implications

The capability to automatically synthesize large volumes of internet data raises concerns about misinformation. While the Research Analyst Agent and content-checking heuristics can minimize factual errors, users should exercise caution, particularly in sensitive fields such as medical or legal domains. Additionally, as more automated content generation systems proliferate, the boundary between genuine human-authored text and AI-generated text becomes blurred, necessitating transparency measures (Floridi & Taddeo, 2018).

6.3 Future Work

Several directions can extend or enhance this system:

  1. Expert Agents: Introducing domain-specific agents (e.g., legal, medical) to further filter and validate information.
  2. Enhanced Fact-Checking: Integration with knowledge graphs and advanced question-answering systems for real-time fact verification.
  3. User Feedback Loops: Mechanisms enabling users to rate or annotate generated content, improving the system's accuracy over time via reinforcement learning.
  4. Edge Deployments: Optimization for embedded devices and IoT contexts, expanding the system's accessibility to areas with limited connectivity.

7. Conclusion

This paper presented a multi-agent internet research assistant grounded in OpenAI's Swarm framework and powered by the locally deployed Llama 3.2 model via Ollama. By dividing tasks into specialized agents for searching, research analysis, and technical writing, we demonstrated a scalable, secure, and privacy-preserving solution to information overload. Empirical evidence suggests the system can effectively gather, analyze, and synthesize diverse web content into coherent articles, offering substantial benefits for academic researchers, writers, educators, and enterprise intelligence workflows. Future extensions will explore more advanced fact-checking mechanisms, domain-specific agents, and cross-lingual capabilities, paving the way for more robust and globally accessible multi-agent research assistants.

References

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