SCOPE-Router: Cost-Aware Open-Set VLM Routing for Execution-Oriented Tasks

TL;DR - SCOPE-Router selects VLMs for execution-oriented queries while balancing quality and cost, including when unseen models or tasks appear. It outperforms competing routers in open-set and out-of-distribution evaluations.

• VLM-ExecRouterBench covers Code, Agentic, and Search tasks across 11 models with widely varying prices.
• The dual-tower router matches queries against calibrated model behavior profiles, allowing new models without retraining.
• Its CRM+RCCR objective preserves multiple suitable-model signals while incorporating cost preferences.
• SCOPE-Router leads all three benchmarks; CRM+RCCR also improves four other router architectures by 1.25–6.21 Rank Score points.