English

tensorFM: Low-Rank Approximations of Cross-Order Feature Interactions

Machine Learning 2026-02-18 v1 Information Retrieval

Abstract

We address prediction problems on tabular categorical data, where each instance is defined by multiple categorical attributes, each taking values from a finite set. These attributes are often referred to as fields, and their categorical values as features. Such problems frequently arise in practical applications, including click-through rate prediction and social sciences. We introduce and analyze {tensorFM}, a new model that efficiently captures high-order interactions between attributes via a low-rank tensor approximation representing the strength of these interactions. Our model generalizes field-weighted factorization machines. Empirically, tensorFM demonstrates competitive performance with state-of-the-art methods. Additionally, its low latency makes it well-suited for time-sensitive applications, such as online advertising.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2602.15229,
  title  = {tensorFM: Low-Rank Approximations of Cross-Order Feature Interactions},
  author = {Alessio Mazzetto and Mohammad Mahdi Khalili and Laura Fee Nern and Michael Viderman and Alex Shtoff and Krzysztof Dembczyński},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2602.15229},
  year   = {2026}
}