Conversational Search

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Overview

Conversational search combines information retrieval with multi-turn dialogue: systems rewrite context-dependent questions, retrieve from text or multimodal collections, and ask clarifying questions when intent or preferences are underspecified. Common approaches include sparse–dense hybrid retrieval and reranking, large language model query rewriting and retrieval-augmented generation, conversational embeddings, and interactive agents that elicit constraints or personalize results. Evaluation spans conversational retrieval benchmarks, product and video search, and newer tests of clarification, long-horizon tasks, robustness, and interaction cost. A central challenge is balancing retrieval accuracy and efficiency with asking at the right time, grounding answers in reliable sources, protecting private data, and avoiding overreliance on fluent but uncertain responses.

Latest papers

CardsList

23 papers1 paper in the last four weeks, against 1 the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. RALI@iKAT 2026: Retrieval-aware User Profile Denoising via Personalized Conversational Dense Retrieval

    Oct 13, 2026Yuchen Hui, Fengran Mo, Jia Ao Sun +3Information RetrievalConversational Search

    RALI, Université de Montréal Montréal, Québec, Canada

  2. CompCQR: Compositional Query Generation for Training-Free Conversational Search

    Sep 13, 2026Yunah Jang, Kang-il Lee, Joongbo Shin +1Conversational SearchQuery Reformulation

    Dept. of ECE, Seoul National University · LG AI Research

  3. Do LLMs Know What to Ask and When? Evaluating Multi-Turn Information Seeking

    Aug 14, 2026Yepeng Huang, Jiawen Zhang, Michelle Dai +4LLM EvaluationClarification Question Generation

    Harvard University · Google DeepMind

  4. Improving Ad-hoc Search Effectiveness for Conversational Information Retrieval via Model Merging

    Jul 9, 2026Ahmed Rayane Kebir, Jose G. Moreno, Lynda TamineConversational SearchInformation Retrieval

    University of Toulouse, IRIT Toulouse, France

  5. When Search Agents Should Ask: DiscoBench for Clarification-Aware Deep Search

    Jun 26, 2026Yiling Tao, Shihan Deng, Meiling Tao +3Agentic SearchLLM Agent Evaluation

    Hunyuan, Tencent · Shenzhen International Graduate School, Tsinghua University

  6. Dialogue to Discovery: Attribute-Aware Preference Elicitation for Conversational Product Search Assistants

    Jun 23, 2026Sarthak Harne, Natwar Modani, Debabrata Mahapatra +1E-Commerce SearchConversational Search

    2Microsoft Research · 1Adobe Research · 3UC Berkeley

  7. Fine-grained Fragment Retrieval in Multi-modal Long-form Dialogues

    Jun 3, 2026Hanbo Bi, Zhiqiang Yuan, Chongyang Li +7Multimodal IRConversational Search

    Pattern Recognition Center, WeChat AI, Tencent Inc, China · Aerospace Information Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences

  8. RCEM: Robust Conversational Search EMbedder in Distributional Shift

    Jun 1, 2026Kilho Son, Paul Hsu, Cha Zhang +1Distribution ShiftConversational Search

    Microsoft Corporation

  9. The Decision to Verify: How Warmth and User Characteristics Shape Reliance on Conversational Agents for Information Search

    May 27, 2026Mert Yazan, Frederik Bungaran Ishak Situmeang, Suzan VerberneConversational SearchTrust in AI

  10. VibeSearchBench: Benchmarking Long-horizon Proactive Search in the Wild

    May 27, 2026Xiaohongshu IncAgentic SearchLong-Horizon Agent Evaluation

    Xiaohongshu Dots Studio & Unipat AI

  11. Resolving Ambiguity in Composed Image Retrieval via Calibrated Interaction

    May 23, 2026Amsisan Tran, Baogh Le, Tuan Kiet Pham +1Conversational SearchImage Retrieval

    Amsisan Tran · Baogh Le · Tuan Kiet Pham +1

  12. MTR-Suite: A Framework for Evaluating and Synthesizing Conversational Retrieval Benchmarks

    May 20, 2026Junhao Ruan, Abudukeyumu Abudula, Bei Li +8Conversational SearchSynthetic Benchmark Generation

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China · 2Meituan Inc., 3NiuTrans Research, Shenyang, China · 4Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

  13. KadiAssistant: A conversational AI Agent for information retrieval in Kadi4Mat

    May 13, 2026Adrian Cierpka, Mohammad Shafiqul Islam, Johannes Steinhülb +3Conversational SearchInformation Retrieval

    Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

  14. Caraman at SemEval-2026 Task 8: Three-Stage Multi-Turn Retrieval with Query Rewriting, Hybrid Search, and Cross-Encoder Reranking

    May 12, 2026David-Maximilian Caraman, Gheorghe Cosmin SilaghiCross-Encoder RerankingConversational Search

    Babeş-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania

  15. ADEPT: An Entropy-Driven Dual-Strategy Agent for Interactive Video Retrieval

    May 7, 2026Ke Chen, Shengyuan Han, Yongfeng Huang +4Conversational SearchAgentic Retrieval

    Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan · Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Jiangsu, China · The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR +3

  16. Bridging Passive and Active: Enhancing Conversation Starter Recommendation via Active Expression Modeling

    May 7, 2026Yiqing Wu, Haoming Li, Guanyu Jiang +4Domain-Adversarial LearningConversational Search

    Bytedance Beijing, China

  17. Multi-Faceted Self-Consistent Preference Alignment for Query Rewriting in Conversational Search

    Apr 8, 2026Zhiyu Cao, Peifeng Li, Qiaoming ZhuQuery ReformulationConversational Search

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

  18. Shopping with a Platform AI Assistant: Who Adopts, When in the Journey, and What For

    Mar 26, 2026Se Yan, Han Zhong, Zemin +2Human-AI InteractionE-Commerce

    Zachary · Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 10086, China. · Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada. +1

  19. One Model Is Enough: Native Retrieval Embeddings from LLM Agent Hidden States

    Mar 9, 2026Bo JiangAgentic RetrievalText Embedding Models

    Temple University

  20. Beyond Static: Related Questions Retrieval Through Conversations in Community Question Answering

    Mar 9, 2026Xiao Ao, Jie Zou, Yibiao Wei +2Information RetrievalQuestion Answering

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China · School of Management Science and Engineering, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics

  21. Sensitivity-Aware Retrieval-Augmented Intent Clarification

    Mar 6, 2026Maik LarooijConversational SearchRAG Security

    ICAI OpenGov Lab x IRLab, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  22. Retrieval Challenges in Low-Resource Public Service Information: A Case Study on Food Pantry Access

    Feb 25, 2026Touseef Hasan, Laila Cure, Souvika SarkarInformation RetrievalConversational Search

    Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA

  23. Orcheo: A Modular Full-Stack Platform for Conversational Search

    Feb 16, 2026Shaojie Jiang, Svitlana Vakulenko, Maarten de RijkeConversational SearchSoftware Engineering

    University of Amsterdam · AI Colleagues · WU Vienna University of Economics and Business