Zero-Shot Text Classification

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Overview

Zero-shot text classification studies how to assign texts to predefined categories when no labeled examples are available for the task. Common approaches compare texts with label descriptions using embeddings or natural language inference models, or ask instruction-following language models to classify from prompts; retrieval and clearer label definitions can help distinguish similar categories. These methods support classification in new domains and languages without building a task-specific training set, but results depend strongly on label wording, task difficulty, and evaluation setting. General-purpose models can perform well, yet fine-tuned classifiers often retain an advantage on nuanced categories, and accuracy must be weighed against calibration, latency, and cost.

Latest papers

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35 papers7 papers in the last four weeks, up 40% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. How Well Do Decision Models Transfer to Vietnamese? An Empirical Study of Text Classification

    Oct 22, 2026Phat Huu Ha, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, Nong Nhut Quy +3Zero-Shot Text ClassificationText Classification

    University of Information Technology, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam · Vietnam National University HoChiMinh City, Vietnam

  2. Can This LLM Annotate My Data? Estimating Zero-Shot LLM Performance

    Oct 16, 2026Tong Lin, Grant Schoenebeck, Sabina TomkinsLanguage Model Performance PredictionLLM-Assisted Annotation

    School of Information, University of Michigan

  3. Label-Centric Knowledge Retrieval for Zero-Shot Text Classification

    Oct 12, 2026Daoping Wu, Dong Wang, Siyu Liu +5Zero-Shot Text ClassificationLarge Language Model-Based Text Classification

    Zhejiang Lab, Hangzhou, China · School of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Harbin Institute of Technology, China · School of Mechanical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China

  4. Ideological Stance Detection in a Low-Resource Language: Polarization in Bangladeshi Public vs Private University Discourse on Social Media

    Oct 3, 2026Safaruzzaman Shovo, Monowar Islam, Asif Hossain +2Stance DetectionSocial Media Analysis

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Faridpur Engineering College, Faridpur, Bangladesh

  5. Student-Guided Teacher Distillation for Efficient LLM Task Routing: Positioning Against Jev-Style System-1 Classifiers

    Oct 1, 2026Haifeng Wu, Srinivasan Manoharan, Jian Wan +3LLM RoutingText Classification

    PayPal

  6. How Many Labels Does a Language Need? Annotation Budgets and Cross-Lingual Pooling for African-Language Text Classification

    Sep 29, 2026Bhanu Prakash Vangala, Sowmya Guda, Navya VangalaClassificationLow-Resource Language Processing

    University of Missouri · Amar Bio Tech Pvt Ltd

  7. Using LLMs to Detect LLM-Generated Texts: A Cross-Generation Analysis

    Sep 28, 2026Haiyue Yuan, Jie Guo, Weidong Qiu +3LLM EvaluationAI-Generated Text Detection

    Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS) & School of Computing, University of Kent, UK · School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China · School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, UK

  8. AraGenre 2026: A Hierarchical Definition-Guided Arabic Genre Classification Shared Task

    Sep 23, 2026Mo El-Haj, Saad Ezzini, Shadi Abudalfa +3Hierarchical ClassificationArabic NLP

    VinUniversity, Vietnam · Lancaster University, UK · King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Arabia +3

  9. Custom Named Entity Recognition and Topic Classification for Global Health Publications

    Sep 21, 2026Genis Skura, Antoine Geissbühler, Jean-Luc FalconeNamed Entity RecognitionMulti-Label Classification

    University of Geneva

  10. Zero-shot narrative detection in social messaging

    Sep 15, 2026Jesús M. Fraile-Hernández, Anselmo Peñas, Patrick GiedemannZero-Shot Text Classification

  11. SCX Router: Streaming Zero-Shot Model Selection with a Decoder-KV Classifier and a Real-World Task Ontology

    Sep 2, 2026Ihor Stepanov, Aleksandr Smechov, Mykhailo Shtopko +2LLM RoutingZero-Shot Text Classification

    Knowledgator · SCX.ai Holdings Limited

  12. From Confusion to Clarity: Confusion-Aware Retrieval and Knowledge Injection for Text Classification

    Sep 1, 2026Manish Gupta, Chaitanya Giri, Jayasimha TalurZero-Shot Text ClassificationRetrieval-Augmented Classification

    Amazon

  13. Retrieval-Augmented Classification of Environmental Mitigations in Hydropower Licensing Documents

    Aug 24, 2026Hong-Jun Yoon, Tom Ruggles, Joanna Lee +1Retrieval-Augmented ClassificationMulti-Label Classification

    Computational Sciences and Engineering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830, USA · Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830, USA · Farragut High School, Knoxville, Tennessee 37934

  14. A Cost-Efficient Routing Pipeline for Multilingual Short-Text Classification Using Small Language Models

    Aug 11, 2026Wajdi Ben Saad, Safa MadiouniZero-Shot Text ClassificationMultilingual Text Classification

    Carthago Labs Paris, France · Université Paris Dauphine-PSL Paris, France

  15. Hate Speech Classification In Roman Urdu: A Comparative Study On Parameter Efficient Fine-Tuning And Prompt Engineering

    Aug 10, 2026Toneema ZubairHate Speech DetectionPrompt Engineering

    Department of Computer Science Information Technology University, Lahore Pakistan

  16. Selecting Open-Weight Language Models for Zero-Shot Intent Classification: A Systematic Evaluation of 41 Models

    Jul 29, 2026Parishruthi Ganesh, Gerry Dozier, Cheryl SealsLLM EvaluationZero-Shot Text Classification

    Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering Auburn University Auburn, Alabama, USA

  17. LEX-EC: A Lexical Evidence-Channel Audit Framework for Zero-Shot LLM Personality Classification in Black-Box Settings

    Jul 27, 2026Brittany Harbison, Ashok K. GoelZero-Shot Text ClassificationLLM Auditing

    Georgia Institute of Technology Atlanta, Georgia, USA

  18. Quantifying the Affective Gap: A Zero-Shot Evaluation of LLMs on Fine-Grained Emotion Taxonomies

    Jul 1, 2026Lawrence Obiuwevwi, Krzysztof J. Rechowicz, Jessica M. Johnson +3LLM EvaluationZero-Shot Text Classification

    Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA

  19. Do We Still Need Fine Tuning? Turkish Sentiment Analysis in the Era of Large Language Model

    Jun 28, 2026Sercan Karakaş, Yusuf ŞimşekSupervised Fine-TuningLLM Evaluation

    University of Chicago · Fırat University

  20. Can News Predict the Market? Limits of Zero-Shot Financial NLP and the Role of Explainable AI

    Jun 10, 2026Ali M Karaoglu, Shreyank N GowdaFinancial ForecastingZero-Shot Text Classification

    School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

  21. Supervision versus Demonstration-Based In-Context Learning for Multiword Expression Classification

    Jun 5, 2026Sercan Karakaş, Yusuf ŞimşekLLM EvaluationZero-Shot Text Classification

    University of Chicago · Fırat University

  22. Contextualized Prompting For Stance Detection On Social Media

    Jun 4, 2026Tilman Beck, Shakib Yazdani, Simon Kruschinski +2Social Media AnalysisStance Detection

    Institute of Intensive Care, University Hospital of Zurich and University of Zurich · Institute of Computer Science, University of Goettingen · GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences +2

  23. Long Live Fine-Tuning: Task-Specific Transformers Outperform Zero-Shot LLMs for Misinformation Response Classification on Reddit

    Jun 2, 2026JooYoung Lee, Lin Tian, Angela Brillantes +2LLM EvaluationZero-Shot Text Classification

    University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia.

  24. On the Limits of LLM Adaptability: Impact of Model-Internalized Priors on Annotation Task Performance

    May 30, 2026Etienne Casanova, Rafal Kocielnik, R. Michael AlvarezLLM EvaluationZero-Shot Text Classification

    California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.

  25. Knowledge Graph-Enhanced Zero-Shot Topic Classification: A Multi-Strategy Comparative Study

    May 28, 2026Shahana Akter, Yatharth Vohra, Ankita Shukla +1Multi-Label ClassificationZero-Shot Text Classification

    A2I Lab, School of Computing, Wichita State University · EIS Lab, College of Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno

  26. Tokenizer Fertility and Zero-Shot Performance of Foundation Models on Ukrainian Legal Text: A Comparative Study

    May 14, 2026Volodymyr OvcharovMultilingual Language Model EvaluationLegal NLP

    LEX AI Platform, legal.org.ua Kyiv, Ukraine

  27. Task-Adaptive Embedding Refinement via Test-time LLM Guidance

    May 12, 2026Ariel Gera, Shir Ashury-Tahan, Gal Bloch +2Zero-Shot Text ClassificationLarge Language Model-Guided Optimization

    IBM Research

  28. The Silent Vote: Improving Zero-Shot LLM Reliability by Aggregating Semantic Neighborhoods

    May 10, 2026Sanket Badhe, Priyanka Tiwari, Deep ShahConstrained DecodingZero-Shot Text Classification

    Google

  29. Iterative Definition Refinement for Zero-Shot Classification via LLM-Based Semantic Prototype Optimization

    Apr 30, 2026Naeem Rehmat, Muhammad Saad Saeed, Ijaz Ul Haq +1Prototype-Based ClassificationZero-Shot Text Classification

    University of Michigan-Flint, Michigan, USA

  30. Sentiment analysis for software engineering: How far can zero-shot learning (ZSL) go?

    Apr 15, 2026Reem Alfayez, Manal BinkhonainSentiment AnalysisZero-Shot Text Classification

    Department of Software Engineering, College of Computer and Information Sciences, King Saud University, P.O. Box 51178, Riyadh 11543, Saudi Arabia