Enabling Mobile AI Agent in 6G Era: Architecture and Key Technologies

With the advent of mobile networks, we are witnessing an unprecedented shift in the landscape of mobile network services, evolving from traditional voice calls to advanced artificial intelligence (AI) services. This paper delves into the intricacies of this evolution, particularly emphasizing the deep integration of AI agents into 6G networks. Despite recent researches in using large language model (LLM) and AI agent for network automation, the fundamental mobile AI agent use cases, their network requirements, potential network architecture and enabling technologies for supporting the pervasive AI agents in 6G era are largely unexplored. In this article, we present an in-depth analysis of typical mobile AI agent use cases in 6G, consisting of AI agent-based 6G network automation, handheld personalized agents, connected robotics and autonomous systems, and wearable AI agent. Then, we elucidate a novel system architecture that supports identified use cases. The article also addresses core aspects of enabling technologies, including 6G agent and application agent collaboration, efficient model and memory management, coordinated agent-to-agent communication and support of multi-modal data transmission. A proof of concept prototype is also presented to demonstrate 6G agent and application AI agent collaboration. Finally, three challenges and research directions: energy saving, security protection and AI agent tailored communication are discussed. This article lays a foundation for understanding the role of 6G in realizing the full potential of AI agents in various applications.