DIAURec: Dual-Intent Space Representation Optimization for Recommendation
Abstract
General recommender systems deliver personalized services by learning user and item representations, with the central challenge being how to capture latent user preferences. However, representations derived from sparse interactions often fail to comprehensively characterize user behaviors, thereby limiting recommendation effectiveness. Recent studies attempt to enhance user representations through sophisticated modeling strategies (e.g., intent or language modeling). Nevertheless, most works primarily concentrate on model interpretability instead of representation optimization. This imbalance has led to limited progress, as representation optimization is crucial for recommendation quality by promoting the affinity between users and their interacted items in the feature space, yet remains largely overlooked. To overcome these limitations, we propose DIAURec, a novel representation learning framework that unifies intent and language modeling for recommendation. DIAURec reconstructs representations based on the prototype and distribution intent spaces formed by collaborative and language signals. Furthermore, we design a comprehensive representation optimization strategy. Specifically, we adopts alignment and uniformity as the primary optimization objectives, and incorporates both coarse- and fine-grained matching to achieve effective alignment across different spaces, thereby enhancing representational consistency. Additionally, we further introduce intra-space and interaction regularization to enhance model robustness and prevent representation collapse in reconstructed space representation. Experiments on three public datasets against fifteen baseline methods show that DIAURec consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, fully validating its effectiveness and superiority.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ke Wang 0038 | 54 | 68 Contrastive Self-supervised Learning in Recommender Systems: A Survey (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 59 Enhancing Cross-Domain Recommendation with Plug-In Contrastive Representations from Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 56 Review-Enhanced Hierarchical Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 2 | Mingdai Yang | 43 | 68 Collaborative Alignment for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning 53 Knowledge Graph Context-Enhanced Diversified Recommendation (2024) Knowledge Graph Embedding and Completion |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 50 |
Area-chair candidates (5)
| Maolin Wang 0001 assigned | 50 | 15 papers | |
| Leyu Lin | 45 | 15 papers | |
| Kun Gai COI: co-author | 44 | 5 papers | |
| Pengyue Jia | 42 | 10 papers | |
| Weiming Liu 0005 | 42 | 8 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ke Wang 0038 assigned | 54 | 3 | 68 Contrastive Self-supervised Learning in Recommender Systems: A Survey (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 59 Enhancing Cross-Domain Recommendation with Plug-In Contrastive Representations from Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 2 | Lianghao Xia | 54 | 3 | 67 Automated Self-Supervised Learning for Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 LightGCL: Simple Yet Effective Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 3 | Yang Zhang 0072 | 54 | 3 | 55 Text-like Encoding of Collaborative Information in Large Language Models for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 55 CoLLM: Integrating Collaborative Embeddings Into Large Language Models for Recommendation (2025) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
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| 4 | Yi Zhang 0103 COI: author | 53 | 3 | 67 MixRec: Individual and Collective Mixing Empowers Data Augmentation for Recommender Systems (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 Unveiling Contrastive Learning's Capability of Neighborhood Aggregation for Collaborative Filtering (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 6 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 50 | 3 | 67 Enhancing Graph Contrastive Learning with Reliable and Informative Augmentation for Recommendation (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 56 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 7 | Yupeng Hou | 48 | 3 | 59 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 53 Recommendation as Instruction Following: A Large Language Model Empowered Recommendation Approach (2025) Personalized LLM Adaptation |
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| 8 | Jiuqiang Li 0002 | 48 | 3 | 51 Multi-view Semantic Contrastive Alignment for Multimodal Recommendation (2026) Universal Multimodal Embedding and MLLM Retrieval 46 Disentangled Contrastive Bundle Recommendation with Conditional Diffusion (2025) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders |
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| 9 | Jiancan Wu | 48 | 3 | 67 Self-supervised Graph Learning for Recommendation (2021) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 57 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 10 | Xubin Ren | 48 | 3 | 72 EasyRec: Simple yet Effective Language Models for Recommendation (2025) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 49 Multi-auxiliary Augmented Collaborative Variational Auto-encoder for Tag Recommendation (2023) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders |
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| 11 | Jizhi Zhang | 47 | 3 | 56 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 55 CoLLM: Integrating Collaborative Embeddings Into Large Language Models for Recommendation (2025) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
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| 12 | Yinwei Wei | 46 | 3 | 56 Modality-Independent Graph Neural Networks with Global Transformers for Multimodal Recommendation (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 56 Multi-modal Bipartite Graph Structure Learning with Information Bottleneck for Micro-video Recommendation (2026) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 13 | Wei Wei 0027 | 46 | 3 | 65 Heterogeneous Graph Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 55 Representation Learning with Large Language Models for Recommendation (2024) Text Embedding and Representation Learning |
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| 14 | Jieming Zhu COI: co-author | 46 | 3 | 59 EAGER-LLM: Enhancing Large Language Models as Recommenders through Exogenous Behavior-Semantic Integration (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 57 EASE: Learning Lightweight Semantic Feature Adapters from Large Language Models for CTR Prediction (2024) CTR and Conversion Rate Prediction |
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| 15 | Yong He 0009 | 46 | 3 | 68 Global-Aware Model-Free Self-distillation for Recommendation System (2023) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 44 Breaking the Length Barrier: LLM-Enhanced CTR Prediction in Long Textual User Behaviors (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 16 | Xiaolong Liu 0012 | 45 | 3 | 74 Collaborative Alignment for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning |
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| 17 | Hao Liu 0078 | 45 | 3 | 44 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 44 DA-DAN: A Dual Adversarial Domain Adaption Network for Unsupervised Non-overlapping Cross-domain Recommendation (2024) Domain Adaptation and Disentangled Representation for CDR |
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| 19 | Ed H. Chi | 45 | 3 | 68 Self-supervised Learning for Large-scale Item Recommendations (2021) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 44 Better Generalization with Semantic IDs: A Case Study in Ranking for Recommendations (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
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| 20 | Lichan Hong | 44 | 3 | 68 Self-supervised Learning for Large-scale Item Recommendations (2021) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 44 Enhancing Online Ranking Systems via Multi-Surface Co-Training for Content Understanding (2025) Content-Based Transferable Recommendation |
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| 22 | Jiangxia Cao | 44 | 3 | 57 Enhancing Content-based Recommendation via Large Language Model (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 44 DisenCDR: Learning Disentangled Representations for Cross-Domain Recommendation (2022) Domain Adaptation and Disentangled Representation for CDR |
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| 23 | Lantao Hu | 44 | 3 | 68 Soft Contrastive Sequential Recommendation (2024) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation 68 MODEM: Decoupling User Behavior for Shared-Account Video Recommendations on Large Screen Devices (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 24 | Min Hou 0004 | 44 | 3 | 68 Unified Representation Learning for Discrete Attribute Enhanced Completely Cold-Start Recommendation (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 Pre-training General User Representation with Multi-type APP Behaviors (2024) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
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| 25 | Junjie Zhang 0009 | 44 | 3 | 53 Recommendation as Instruction Following: A Large Language Model Empowered Recommendation Approach (2025) Personalized LLM Adaptation 43 Enhancing Graph Contrastive Learning with Reliable and Informative Augmentation for Recommendation (2025) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 26 | Bo Chen 0023 | 44 | 3 | 59 ELCoRec: Enhance Language Understanding with Co-Propagation of Numerical and Categorical Features for Recommendation (2024) LLM-Collaborative Filtering Integration 47 Towards Open-World Recommendation with Knowledge Augmentation from Large Language Models (2024) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 27 | Chen Wang 0052 | 44 | 3 | 67 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning 59 Collaborative Alignment for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
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| 28 | Chongming Gao | 43 | 3 | 56 Tunable LLM-based Proactive Recommendation Agent (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 Don't Start Over: A Cost-Effective Framework for Migrating Personalized Prompts Between LLMs (2026) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 29 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 | 43 | 3 | 56 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 43 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 30 | Chunyang Wang 0001 | 43 | 3 | 56 Guiding Graph Learning with Denoised Modality for Multi-modal Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 56 Review-Enhanced Hierarchical Contrastive Learning for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |
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| 31 | Junwei Pan | 43 | 3 | 55 Pre-train, Align, and Disentangle: Empowering Sequential Recommendation with Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 45 Cross-Scale Collaboration between LLMs and Lightweight Sequential Recommenders with Domain-Specific Latent Reasoning (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 32 | Mingdai Yang assigned | 43 | 3 | 68 Collaborative Alignment for Recommendation (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 67 Graph-based Alignment and Uniformity for Recommendation (2023) Graph-based User and Item Representation Learning |
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| 33 | Yongjing Hao | 43 | 3 | 55 LMACL: Improving Graph Collaborative Filtering with Learnable Model Augmentation Contrastive Learning (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning 55 Meta-optimized Structural and Semantic Contrastive Learning for Graph Collaborative Filtering (2024) Graph Contrastive and Self-Supervised Learning |