Learning Decomposed Contextual Token Representations from Pretrained and Collaborative Signals for Generative Recommendation
Abstract
Recent advances in generative recommenders adopt a two-stage paradigm: items are first tokenized into semantic IDs using a pretrained tokenizer, and then large language models (LLMs) are trained to generate the next item via sequence-to-sequence modeling. However, these two stages are optimized for different objectives: semantic reconstruction during tokenizer pretraining versus user interaction modeling during recommender training. This objective misalignment leads to two key limitations: (i) suboptimal static tokenization, where fixed token assignments fail to reflect diverse usage contexts; and (ii) discarded pretrained semantics, where pretrained knowledge—typically from language model embeddings—is overwritten during recommender training on user interactions. To address these limitations, we propose to learn DEcomposed COntextual Token Representations (DECOR), a unified framework that preserves pretrained semantics while enhancing the adaptability of token embeddings. DECOR introduces contextualized token composition to refine token embeddings based on user interaction context, and decomposed embedding fusion that integrates pretrained codebook embeddings with newly learned collaborative embeddings. Experiments on three real-world datasets demonstrate that DECOR consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in recommendation performance. Our code is available at https://github.com/yliuaa/DECOR.git.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yupeng Hou | 59 | 76 ActionPiece: Contextually Tokenizing Action Sequences for Generative Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 73 Towards Large Generative Recommendation: A Tokenization Perspective (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 72 Learning Vector-Quantized Item Representation for Transferable Sequential Recommenders (2023) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 2 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 57 | 76 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 73 Bridging Textual-Collaborative Gap through Semantic Codes for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 64 Generative Recommender with End-to-End Learnable Item Tokenization (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 55 |
Area-chair candidates (3)
| Maolin Wang 0001 assigned | 55 | 15 papers | |
| Xiaoyi Zeng | 48 | 11 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 44 | 5 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yang Zhang 0072 COI: author | 60 | 3 | 67 IGD: Token Decisiveness Modeling via Information Gain in LLMs for Personalized Recommendation (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 67 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 2 | Jizhi Zhang COI: co-author | 60 | 3 | 87 Learnable Item Tokenization for Generative Recommendation (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 76 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 3 | Yupeng Hou assigned | 59 | 3 | 76 ActionPiece: Contextually Tokenizing Action Sequences for Generative Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 73 Towards Large Generative Recommendation: A Tokenization Perspective (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 4 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 COI: co-author | 58 | 3 | 76 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 67 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 5 | Bowen Zheng 0005 assigned | 57 | 3 | 76 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 73 Bridging Textual-Collaborative Gap through Semantic Codes for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 6 | Jieming Zhu COI: co-author | 55 | 3 | 74 EAGER-LLM: Enhancing Large Language Models as Recommenders through Exogenous Behavior-Semantic Integration (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 73 CoST: Contrastive Quantization based Semantic Tokenization for Generative Recommendation (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 8 | Hao Deng 0011 | 51 | 3 | 63 REG4Rec: Reasoning-Enhanced Generative Model for Large-Scale Recommendation Systems (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 62 MMQ: Multimodal Mixture-of-Quantization Tokenization for Semantic ID Generation and User Behavioral Adaptation (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 9 | Han Li 0005 | 50 | 3 | 74 Generative Recommender with End-to-End Learnable Item Tokenization (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 63 LEARN: Knowledge Adaptation from Large Language Model to Recommendation for Practical Industrial Application (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
|
| 10 | Ed H. Chi | 49 | 3 | 76 PLUM: Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Industrial-scale Generative Recommendations (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 74 Recommender Systems with Generative Retrieval (2023) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 11 | Junwei Pan | 49 | 3 | 87 Incremental Learning for LLM-based Tokenization and Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 63 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 12 | Qijiong Liu | 48 | 3 | 73 CoST: Contrastive Quantization based Semantic Tokenization for Generative Recommendation (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 73 Learning Multi-aspect Item Palette: A Semantic Tokenization Framework for Generative Recommendation (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 13 | Keqin Bao COI: co-author | 48 | 3 | 67 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 67 Decoding Matters: Addressing Amplification Bias and Homogeneity Issue in Recommendations for Large Language Models (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 14 | Jiancan Wu COI: co-author | 48 | 3 | 73 Towards Large Generative Recommendation: A Tokenization Perspective (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 62 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
|
| 15 | Lianghao Xia | 48 | 3 | 62 RecGPT: A Foundation Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 59 Representation Learning with Large Language Models for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
|
| 17 | Lichan Hong | 47 | 3 | 76 PLUM: Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Industrial-scale Generative Recommendations (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 73 Better Generalization with Semantic IDs: A Case Study in Ranking for Recommendations (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 18 | Qiang Luo 0004 | 47 | 3 | 62 DiffGRM: Diffusion-based Generative Recommendation Model (2026) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders 61 OneLoc: Geo-Aware Generative Recommender Systems for Local Life Service (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 19 | Chongming Gao COI: co-author | 47 | 3 | 63 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 63 MGFRec: Towards Reinforced Reasoning Recommendation with Multiple Groundings and Feedback (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
|
| 20 | Julian J. McAuley COI: co-author | 47 | 3 | 76 Towards Large Generative Recommendation: A Tokenization Perspective (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 71 Learning Vector-Quantized Item Representation for Transferable Sequential Recommenders (2023) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 21 | Lantao Hu | 47 | 3 | 74 Generative Recommender with End-to-End Learnable Item Tokenization (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 72 Distinguished Quantized Guidance for Diffusion-based Sequence Recommendation (2025) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders |
|
| 22 | Bo Chen 0023 COI: co-author | 47 | 3 | 51 Generative Representational Learning of Foundation Models for Recommendation (2026) Generative Retrieval and Ranking 50 Full-Stack Optimized Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
|
| 23 | Jie Jiang 0015 | 46 | 3 | 87 Incremental Learning for LLM-based Tokenization and Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 75 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 24 | Jinxin Hu | 46 | 3 | 73 HeterRec: Heterogeneous Information Transformer for Scalable Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 63 REG4Rec: Reasoning-Enhanced Generative Model for Large-Scale Recommendation Systems (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 25 | Ke Wang 0038 | 46 | 3 | 61 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 |
|
| 26 | Yu Zhang 0206 | 46 | 3 | 76 MMQ: Multimodal Mixture-of-Quantization Tokenization for Semantic ID Generation and User Behavioral Adaptation (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 70 HeterRec: Heterogeneous Information Transformer for Scalable Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 27 | Jiangxia Cao | 46 | 3 | 59 Enhancing Content-based Recommendation via Large Language Model (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 50 A Multi-modal Modeling Framework for Cold-start Short-video Recommendation (2024) Multimodal Generative Recommendation |
|
| 28 | Yongxin Ni | 45 | 3 | 50 Online Distillation-enhanced Multi-modal Transformer for Sequential Recommendation (2023) Multimodal Generative Recommendation 49 Multi-Modality is All You Need for Transferable Recommender Systems (2024) Multimodal Generative Recommendation |
|
| 29 | Seongmin Park 0002 | 45 | 3 | 57 LLM-Enhanced Linear Autoencoders for Recommendation (2025) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment 44 Temporal Linear Item-Item Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
|
| 30 | Xuanhua Yang | 45 | 3 | 58 GenRec: A Preference-Oriented Generative Framework for Large-Scale Recommendation (2026) Generative Retrieval and Ranking 57 Breaking the Relevance-Diversity Seesaw: Hierarchical LLM Reasoning with RL for Industrial Novelty Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
|
| 31 | Yongqi Li 0001 | 45 | 3 | 79 Learnable Item Tokenization for Generative Recommendation (2024) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 71 Bridging Items and Language: A Transition Paradigm for Large Language Model-Based Recommendation (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 32 | Xubin Ren | 45 | 3 | 62 RecGPT: A Foundation Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs 59 EasyRec: Simple yet Effective Language Models for Recommendation (2025) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |