Online Continual Learning

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Overview

Online continual learning studies how models can learn from data as it arrives, often in a single pass and without known task boundaries, while retaining useful information from the past. Common approaches use replay buffers or structured memories, constrain updates with regularization or parameter-efficient adapters, expand model capacity, or detect distribution shifts to trigger targeted updates. Researchers evaluate these methods on streaming vision and language tasks, time-series drift, robotics, and resource-constrained devices, measuring accuracy, forgetting, transfer, memory, and compute. A central challenge is balancing adaptation to new or recurring patterns against retention, while ensuring results hold under realistic streams and do not depend on hidden assumptions such as task labels or pretrained features.

Latest papers

CardsList

106 papers18 papers in the last four weeks, up 80% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. CAMR: Compatibility-Aware Memory Replay for Continual Learning in Large Language Models

    Oct 27, 2026Jingpu Yang, Tianhao Li, Fengxian Ji +3Continual LearningContinual Learning for LLMs

    Beijing Zhongguancun Academy · Northeastern University · Beihang University +1

  2. Recall or Relearn? A Mixture of In-Context Experts for Recurring Concept Drift

    Oct 27, 2026Zhangkai Wu, Xu Zhang, Zhihong Cui +2Concept DriftOnline Continual Learning

    University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia · Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia · Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway +2

  3. CARES: Coverage-Aware Replay Exemplar Selection for Continual Learning

    Oct 23, 2026Arundhati S. Shanbhag, Brian B. Moser, Federico Raue +2Replay-Based Continual LearningExperience Replay

    University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany · German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Germany

  4. Online Continual Learning in Edge-Cloud Applications

    Oct 23, 2026Charalampos Davalas, Dimitrios Michail, Christos Diou +2Online Continual LearningEdge ML

    Department of Informatics and Telematics, Harokopio University of Athens, Athens, 17778, Greece · School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, Athens, 15773, Greece

  5. From Generic to Dedicated: A Novel Optimizer for Online Continual Learning

    Oct 20, 2026Yongyi Wu, Zheng Wang, Sen LinOnline Continual LearningCatastrophic Forgetting

    University of Houston Houston, USA

  6. Time to Fake It: Continual Machine Learning Intensifies Unfairness in Deepfake Detection

    Oct 15, 2026Kajaree Das, Oliver Böse, Subarnaduti Paul +2Algorithmic FairnessDeepfake Detection

    Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

  7. Optimal Explicit and Implicit Regularization Strengths in High-Dimensional Continual Linear Regression

    Oct 14, 2026Gilad Karpel, Daniel SoudryHigh-Dimensional Linear RegressionRegularization-Based Continual Learning

    Department of Data and Decisions Sciences, Technion · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Technion

  8. Representation Drift in Continual Learning: LoRA versus N-gram Memory

    Oct 10, 2026Hao WuContinual Learning for LLMsOnline Continual Learning

    Illinois Institute of Technology

  9. Formalizing Forgetting: Theory of Forgetting for Online Continual Learning

    Oct 10, 2026Renjie Cao, Yifei Cheng, Li ShenOnline Continual LearningCatastrophic Forgetting

    Boston College · Sun Yat-sen University

  10. Recurrent Harness for Agentic Continual Learning

    Oct 8, 2026Yuxin Xiao, Zhiyun Lu, Jianyu Wang +4Continual Learning for LLM AgentsAgent Harness Optimization

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Meta MRS Research · Yale University

  11. Frozen Models, Evolving Expertise: Model-Agnostic Learning from Deployment Experience for Multimodal Medical AI

    Oct 6, 2026Yexiao He, Yucheng Tang, Pengfei Guo +6Medical LLMsContinual Learning for VLMs

    University of Maryland, College Park · NVIDIA

  12. Benchmarking Label-Revealed Online Updates for EEG BCI Decoding

    Oct 5, 2026Bogdan Kozyrskiy, Artem Grachev, Abraham I. Camelo GuerreroBrain-Computer InterfacesEEG Decoding

    Independent Researcher, France · Independent Researcher, Germany · School of Information Technology, York University, Toronto, Canada

  13. LiLib: Lifelong Air-to-Ground Path-Loss Prediction on UAVs via a Drift-Triggered Model Library

    Oct 5, 2026Minh TranConcept DriftWireless Communications

    Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST), Hanoi, Vietnam

  14. Task Vector Descent: Learning from Non-IID Batches

    Oct 4, 2026Anton Baumann, Jonas Hübotter, Zeynep Akata +1Continual Learning for LLMsTask Arithmetic

    ETH Zurich · Technical University of Munich

  15. AIBL: Augmented Instance-Based Learning with Structured Memory and Neural Embeddings

    Oct 2, 2026Radha Poovendran, Andrea Stocco, Linda BushnellOnline Continual LearningMemory-Augmented Neural Networks

    University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195, USA.

  16. AIGS: Adaptive Incremental Gating System for Online Representation Learning in Non-Stationary Data Streams

    Oct 2, 2026SiRui He, Kai Liang Lew, Chui Zi Ong +1Time Series Representation LearningRepresentation Learning

    Xiamen University Malaysia Sepang, Malaysia · Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Multimedia University Melaka, Melaka, Malaysia · School of Economics and Management, Xiamen University Malaysia Sepang, Malaysia +1

  17. Continual Learning for 6-DoF Grasp Synthesis via Experience and Demonstrations

    Oct 1, 2026Giulio Schiavi, Andrei Cramariuc, Michael Pantic +1Robotic GraspingContinual Robot Learning

    Autonomous Systems Lab ETH Zurich, Switzerland · Robotics Systems Lab ETH Zurich, Switzerland

  18. A Dynamical Theory of LoRA in Continual Learning

    Sep 30, 2026Théo Marchetta, Filippo Alessandroni, Alessandro Breccia +2Continual LearningLow-Rank Adaptation

    Department of Mathematics, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, Piazza di Porta San Donato 5, 40126 Bologna, Italy · Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, University College London · Donders Centre for Neuroscience, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

  19. HiTS-CL: A Continual Learning Framework for Long-Horizon Temporal Knowledge Graph Extrapolation

    Sep 29, 2026Yansong Liu, Rui Liu, Yuan Zuo +6Temporal Link PredictionReplay-Based Continual Learning

    Beihang University Beijing, China · Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications Beijing, China · Hubei Engineering University Xiaogan, Hubei, China

  20. Online Versatile Incremental Learning: Towards Class and Domain-Agnostic Adaptation at Any Time

    Sep 29, 2026Jae-Ho Lee, Min-Yeong Park, Jun-Yeong Moon +2Class-Incremental LearningDomain-Incremental Learning

    Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea · Kyung Hee University, Yongin, Republic of Korea

  21. Reliable Replay through Spatial Coherence in Online Continual Learning

    Sep 27, 2026Haixiang Sun, Jiefu Zhang, Yinghao He +4Continual Learning for LLMsExperience Replay

    Purdue University West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

  22. An Analysis of Streaming Deep Reinforcement Learning for Adaptive Continual Learning in Robotics

    Sep 23, 2026Teeratham Vitchutripop, Alyssa Quarles, Wenhe Zhang +2Reinforcement LearningContinual Robot Learning

    Department of Computer Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA

  23. TM-APR: Thermal Temporal-Memory Localization via Analytic Online Adaptation

    Sep 22, 2026Yanshuo Bai, Kanji TanakaClass-Incremental LearningVisual Place Recognition

  24. Beyond Class Marginals: Bounding Rehearsal Gaps without Freezing Class Co-occurrence

    Sep 22, 2026Congren Dai, Nat Roongjirarat, Fei YeClass-Incremental LearningReplay-Based Continual Learning

    Imperial College London · King’s College London · University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

  25. Brain-Inspired Hierarchical Modularity for General Continual Learning

    Sep 21, 2026Hongwei Yan, Kanglei Zhou, Qi Cheng +7Continual Learning for LLMsContinual Learning for VLA Models

    School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. · IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. · Tsinghua-Peking Center for Life Sciences, Beijing, China. +2

  26. Stable Unsupervised Continual Chunking with Sheaf SyncMap

    Sep 21, 2026Xueyuan Li, Danilo Vasconcellos VargasSheaf Neural NetworksOnline Continual Learning

  27. Self-Evolving Memory for Generative Recommendation

    Sep 14, 2026Xinyu Lin, Zhuosong Jiang, Zixiao Suo +12Memory-Augmented Neural NetworksRecommender Systems

    National University of Singapore · Meta AI

  28. Replay in the Silent Degrees of Freedom: Continual Learning Without an Offline Phase

    Sep 9, 2026Yanhai Zhang, Jie Zhang, Chi XuReplay-Based Continual LearningOnline Continual Learning

    Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A⋆STAR), Singapore · College of Computing and Data Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

  29. MePo++: Unifying Representation Refinement and Reconciliation for General Continual Learning

    Sep 4, 2026Guanglong Sun, Kanglei Zhou, Liyuan Wang +6Continual LearningOnline Continual Learning

    School of Life Sciences, IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · Department of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China +1

  30. When and What to Teach: Budget-Aware Online Adaptation for Web Agents

    Aug 31, 2026Jianwei Zhang, Sihan Cao, Pengcheng Zheng +7Online Knowledge DistillationLLM Agent Training

    University of Electronic Science and Technology of China · Institute of Software Chinese Academy of Sciences · Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology