Factorized Latent Reasoning for LLM-based Recommendation
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have recently been adopted for recommendation by framing user preference modeling as a language generation problem. However, existing latent reasoning approaches typically represent user intent with a single latent vector, which struggles to capture the inherently multi-faceted nature of user preferences. We propose Factorized Latent Reasoning (FLR), a novel framework for LLM-based sequential recommendation that decomposes latent reasoning into multiple disentangled preference factors. FLR introduces a lightweight multi-factor attention module that iteratively refines a latent thought representation, where each factor attends to distinct aspects of the user's interaction history. To encourage diversity and specialization, we design orthogonality, attention diversity, and sparsity regularization objectives, and dynamically aggregate factor contributions for the final prediction. We further integrate FLR with an efficient reinforcement learning strategy based on group-relative policy optimization, enabling stable alignment directly in the latent reasoning space. Experiments on multiple benchmarks show that FLR consistently outperforms strong baselines while improving robustness and interpretability. Our data and code are available at https://github.com/ToAdventure/FLR.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 | 67 | 67 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 64 On Softmax Direct Preference Optimization for Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 64 AlphaDPO: Adaptive Reward Margin for Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 2 | Chongming Gao | 62 | 77 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 66 Tunable LLM-based Proactive Recommendation Agent (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 65 MGFRec: Towards Reinforced Reasoning Recommendation with Multiple Groundings and Feedback (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 3 | Jiancan Wu | 60 | 77 Customizing Language Models with Instance-wise LoRA for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 53 |
Area-chair candidates (7)
| Maolin Wang 0001 assigned | 53 | 15 papers | |
| Yanan Niu | 50 | 15 papers | |
| Pengyue Jia | 49 | 10 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 48 | 5 papers | |
| Leyu Lin | 48 | 15 papers | |
| Xin Xin 0003 COI: co-author | 47 | 10 papers | |
| Jun Xu 0001 | 47 | 2 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 assigned | 67 | 3 | 67 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 64 On Softmax Direct Preference Optimization for Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 2 | Chongming Gao assigned | 62 | 3 | 77 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 66 Tunable LLM-based Proactive Recommendation Agent (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 3 | Jiancan Wu assigned | 60 | 3 | 77 Customizing Language Models with Instance-wise LoRA for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 4 | Jizhi Zhang | 57 | 3 | 64 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 64 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 5 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 55 | 3 | 78 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 57 Autonomous Reasoning-Retrieval for Large Language Model Based Recommendation (2025) Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval and Ranking |
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| 6 | Bo Chen 0023 | 53 | 3 | 79 ReLLa: Retrieval-enhanced Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 73 Full-Stack Optimized Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 7 | Yang Zhang 0072 | 53 | 3 | 64 Reason4Rec: Deliberative User Preference Alignment of Large Language Models for Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization 64 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 9 | Jianling Wang | 52 | 3 | 66 LLMs for User Interest Exploration in Large-scale Recommendation Systems (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 58 A Hierarchical Self-Attentive Model for Recommending User-Generated Item Lists (2019) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
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| 10 | Hao Liu 0078 | 52 | 3 | 78 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 48 Mitigating Distribution Shifts in Sequential Recommendation: An Invariance Perspective (2025) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation |
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| 11 | Bo Peng 0009 | 52 | 3 | 58 M2: Mixed Models With Preferences, Popularities and Transitions for Next-Basket Recommendation (2023) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 54 eCeLLM: Generalizing Large Language Models for E-commerce from Large-scale, High-quality Instruction Data (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 12 | Xiao Zhang 0034 | 52 | 3 | 67 MoRE: A Mixture of Reflectors Framework for Large Language Model-Based Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 65 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 13 | Junwei Pan | 51 | 3 | 69 Cross-Scale Collaboration between LLMs and Lightweight Sequential Recommenders with Domain-Specific Latent Reasoning (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 66 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 14 | Fei Sun 0001 COI: co-author | 51 | 3 | 54 Personalized re-ranking for recommendation (2019) Recommendation with Search and Ranking 53 SDM: Sequential Deep Matching Model for Online Large-scale Recommender System (2019) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 15 | Xuanhua Yang | 50 | 3 | 70 Breaking the Relevance-Diversity Seesaw: Hierarchical LLM Reasoning with RL for Industrial Novelty Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization 57 GenRec: A Preference-Oriented Generative Framework for Large-Scale Recommendation (2026) Generative Retrieval and Ranking |
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| 17 | Han Li 0005 | 50 | 3 | 78 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 59 Lasso: Large Language Model-based User Simulator for Cross-Domain Recommendation (2025) User Simulation for Interactive Systems |
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| 18 | Shuchang Liu 0001 | 49 | 3 | 64 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 Comprehensive List Generation for Multi-Generator Reranking (2025) Recommendation with Search and Ranking |
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| 19 | Jieming Zhu | 49 | 3 | 72 ROMA: Recommendation-Oriented Language Model Adaptation Using Multi-Modal Multi-Domain Item Sequences (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 55 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 22 | Min Hou 0004 | 48 | 3 | 75 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 65 RecCocktail: A Generalizable and Efficient Framework for LLM-Based Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 23 | Yang Song 0008 | 48 | 3 | 53 Mixed Attention Network for Cross-domain Sequential Recommendation (2024) Cross-Domain and Cross-Market Sequential Recommendation 53 Learning and Optimization of Implicit Negative Feedback for Industrial Short-video Recommender System (2023) Multi-Behavior and Multi-Interest Sequential Recommendation |
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| 24 | Wei Guo 0006 | 48 | 3 | 55 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 54 Breaking the Bottleneck: User-Specific Optimization and Real-Time Inference Integration for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
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| 25 | Seongmin Park 0002 | 48 | 3 | 55 Temporal Linear Item-Item Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 53 MUFFIN: Mixture of User-Adaptive Frequency Filtering for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 26 | Huifeng Guo | 48 | 3 | 55 LLMTreeRec: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models for Cold-Start Recommendations (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 53 SELF: Surrogate-light Feature Selection with Large Language Models in Deep Recommender Systems (2025) LLM-Derived Knowledge Infusion |
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| 27 | Lantao Hu | 48 | 3 | 54 Comprehensive List Generation for Multi-Generator Reranking (2025) Recommendation with Search and Ranking 54 Unsupervised Ranking Ensemble Model for Recommendation (2024) Recommendation with Search and Ranking |
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| 29 | James Caverlee | 47 | 3 | 72 Language Models as Semantic Augmenters for Sequential Recommenders (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 51 Consistency-Aware Recommendation for User-Generated Item List Continuation (2020) Multimodal Recommendation for Domain Applications |
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| 30 | Jie Jiang 0015 | 47 | 3 | 71 Pre-train, Align, and Disentangle: Empowering Sequential Recommendation with Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 69 Cross-Scale Collaboration between LLMs and Lightweight Sequential Recommenders with Domain-Specific Latent Reasoning (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 33 | Junjie Zhang 0009 | 46 | 3 | 56 STARec: An Efficient Agent Framework for Recommender Systems via Autonomous Deliberate Reasoning (2025) RL Training of Search Agents 54 Tapping the Potential of Large Language Models as Recommender Systems: A Comprehensive Framework and Empirical Analysis (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 34 | Yongjing Hao | 46 | 3 | 52 Feature-Level Deeper Self-Attention Network With Contrastive Learning for Sequential Recommendation (2023) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation 51 Tell Me Where to Go Next: Improving POI Recommendation via Conversation (2021) Conversational Recommendation Systems |
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| 35 | Keqin Bao | 46 | 3 | 64 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization 59 Item-side Fairness of Large Language Model-based Recommendation System (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 36 | Ke Wang 0038 | 46 | 3 | 66 Enhancing Cross-Domain Recommendation with Plug-In Contrastive Representations from Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 60 LLM-Grounded Diffusion for Cross-Domain Recommendation (2025) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders |
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| 37 | Qiang Luo 0004 | 46 | 3 | 53 FIM: Frequency-Aware Multi-View Interest Modeling for Local-Life Service Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 52 MPFormer: Adaptive Framework for Industrial Multi-Task Personalized Sequential Retriever (2025) Multi-Task and Multi-Objective Optimization |