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Asking clarifying questions in response to ambiguous or faceted queries has been recognized as a useful technique for various information retrieval systems, especially conversational search systems with limited bandwidth interfaces.…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2020-06-16 Helia Hashemi , Hamed Zamani , W. Bruce Croft

In mixed-initiative conversational search systems, clarifying questions are used to help users who struggle to express their intentions in a single query. These questions aim to uncover user's information needs and resolve query…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-02-13 Yifei Yuan , Clemencia Siro , Mohammad Aliannejadi , Maarten de Rijke , Wai Lam

Clarification is increasingly becoming a vital factor in various topics of information retrieval, such as conversational search and modern Web search engines. Prompting the user for clarification in a search session can be very beneficial…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2021-02-09 Ivan Sekulić , Mohammad Aliannejadi , Fabio Crestani

User satisfaction with AI assistants is highly personalized: the same response may satisfy one user but disappoint another depending on what each user expects and what they have asked for before. Existing automatic evaluation methods mostly…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-05-29 Zhefan Wang , Zhiqiang Guo , Weizhi Ma , Min Zhang , Quanjia Yan , Hengliang Luo

In an information-seeking conversation, a user may ask questions that are under-specified or unanswerable. An ideal agent would interact by initiating different response types according to the available knowledge sources. However, most…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2023-06-26 Zeqiu Wu , Ryu Parish , Hao Cheng , Sewon Min , Prithviraj Ammanabrolu , Mari Ostendorf , Hannaneh Hajishirzi

Personalized conversational information retrieval (CIR) systems aim to satisfy users' complex information needs through multi-turn interactions by considering user profiles. However, not all search queries require personalization. The…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2025-08-13 Fengran Mo , Yuchen Hui , Yuxing Tian , Zhaoxuan Tan , Chuan Meng , Zhan Su , Kaiyu Huang , Jian-Yun Nie

Generative AI models face the challenge of hallucinations that can undermine users' trust in such systems. We approach the problem of conversational information seeking as a two-step process, where relevant passages in a corpus are…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-01-23 Weronika Łajewska , Krisztian Balog

To handle underspecified or ambiguous queries, AI assistants need a policy for managing their uncertainty to determine (a) when to guess the user intent and answer directly, (b) when to enumerate and answer multiple possible intents, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-14 Jonathan Berant , Maximillian Chen , Adam Fisch , Reza Aghajani , Fantine Huot , Mirella Lapata , Jacob Eisenstein

Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed as conversational assistants in open-domain, multi-turn settings, where users often provide incomplete or ambiguous information. However, existing LLM-focused clarification benchmarks…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-12-25 Sichun Luo , Yi Huang , Mukai Li , Shichang Meng , Fengyuan Liu , Zefa Hu , Junlan Feng , Qi Liu

Conversational recommender systems aim to interactively support online users in their information search and decision-making processes in an intuitive way. With the latest advances in voice-controlled devices, natural language processing,…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2022-10-31 Dietmar Jannach

Generative AI systems have revolutionized human interaction by enabling natural language-based coding and problem solving. However, the inherent ambiguity of natural language often leads to imprecise instructions, forcing users to…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-07-02 Fabrizio Marozzo

Conversational search presents opportunities to support users in their search activities to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of search while reducing their cognitive load. Limitations of the potential competency of conversational…

Human-Computer Interaction · Computer Science 2021-04-12 Abhishek Kaushik , Gareth J. F. Jones

Recent research on conversational search highlights the importance of mixed-initiative in conversations. To enable mixed-initiative, the system should be able to ask clarifying questions to the user. However, the ability of the underlying…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2020-08-12 Antonios Minas Krasakis , Mohammad Aliannejadi , Nikos Voskarides , Evangelos Kanoulas

The rapid advancement of conversational search systems revolutionizes how information is accessed by enabling the multi-turn interaction between the user and the system. Existing conversational search systems are usually built with two…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-07-14 Fengran Mo , Yifan Gao , Chuan Meng , Xin Liu , Zhuofeng Wu , Kelong Mao , Zhengyang Wang , Pei Chen , Zheng Li , Xian Li , Bing Yin , Meng Jiang

We present a methodology to systematically test conversational recommender systems with regards to conversational breakdowns. It involves examining conversations generated between the system and simulated users for a set of pre-defined…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-05-24 Nolwenn Bernard , Krisztian Balog

Conversational agents often encounter ambiguous user requests, requiring an effective clarification to successfully complete tasks. While recent advancements in real-world applications favor multi-agent architectures to manage complex…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Emre Can Acikgoz , Jinoh Oh , Joo Hyuk Jeon , Jie Hao , Heng Ji , Dilek Hakkani-Tür , Gokhan Tur , Xiang Li , Chengyuan Ma , Xing Fan

Conversational Recommender Systems (CRSs)aim to engage users in dialogue to provide tailored recommendations. While traditional CRSs focus on eliciting preferences and retrieving items, real-world e-commerce interactions involve more…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2025-08-08 Tongyoung Kim , Jeongeun Lee , Soojin Yoon , Sunghwan Kim , Dongha Lee

Conversational information-seeking (CIS) is an emerging paradigm for knowledge acquisition and exploratory search. Traditional web search interfaces enable easy exploration of entities, but this is limited in conversational settings due to…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2024-03-05 Ivan Sekulić , Krisztian Balog , Fabio Crestani

The desire and ability to seek new information strategically are fundamental to human learning but often overlooked in current language agent evaluation. We analyze a popular web shopping task designed to test language agents' ability to…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-18 Sanxing Chen , Sam Wiseman , Bhuwan Dhingra

Users often need to look through multiple search result pages or reformulate queries when they have complex information-seeking needs. Conversational search systems make it possible to improve user satisfaction by asking questions to…

Information Retrieval · Computer Science 2021-07-14 Keping Bi , Qingyao Ai , W. Bruce Croft