Filling the Gaps: Selective Knowledge Augmentation for LLM Recommenders
Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have recently emerged as powerful training-free recommenders. However, their knowledge of individual items is inevitably uneven due to imbalanced information exposure during pretraining, a phenomenon we refer to as knowledge gap problem. To address this, most prior methods have employed a naive uniform augmentation that appends external information for every item in the input prompt. However, this approach not only wastes limited context budget on redundant augmentation for well-known items but can also hinder the model's effective reasoning. To this end, we propose KnowSACKP(Knowledge-aware Selective Augmentation with Comparative Knowledge Probing) to mitigate the knowledge gap problem. KnowSACKP estimates the LLM's internal knowledge by evaluating its capability to capture collaborative relationships and selectively injects additional information only where it is most needed. By avoiding unnecessary augmentation for well-known items, KnowSACKP focuses on items that benefit most from knowledge supplementation, thereby making more effective use of the context budget. KnowSACKP requires no fine-tuning step, and consistently improves both recommendation accuracy and context efficiency across four real-world datasets. Our code is available at https://github.com/nowhyun/KnowSA_CKP.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Huifeng Guo | 48 | 100 SELF: Surrogate-light Feature Selection with Large Language Models in Deep Recommender Systems (2025) LLM-Derived Knowledge Infusion 65 LLM4Tag: Automatic Tagging System for Information Retrieval via Large Language Models (2025) Domain-Specific and Structured Retrieval 56 LLMTreeRec: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models for Cold-Start Recommendations (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 2 | Xiao Zhang 0034 | 45 | 77 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 MoRE: A Mixture of Reflectors Framework for Large Language Model-Based Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 48 Test-Time Alignment with State Space Model for Tracking User Interest Shifts in Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Pengyue Jia | 45 |
Area-chair candidates (8)
| Pengyue Jia assigned | 45 | 10 papers | |
| Jun Xu 0001 | 42 | 2 papers | |
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 42 | 15 papers | |
| Yanan Niu | 42 | 15 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 41 | 5 papers | |
| Leyu Lin | 41 | 15 papers | |
| Weiming Liu 0005 | 40 | 8 papers | |
| Xiaoxue Zang | 40 | 4 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bo Chen 0023 | 52 | 3 | 67 Towards Open-World Recommendation with Knowledge Augmentation from Large Language Models (2024) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation 67 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
|
| 2 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 | 50 | 3 | 56 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 54 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
|
| 3 | Yang Zhang 0072 | 48 | 3 | 57 Preliminary Study on Incremental Learning for Large Language Model-based Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 56 Decoding Matters: Addressing Amplification Bias and Homogeneity Issue in Recommendations for Large Language Models (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 4 | Chongming Gao | 48 | 3 | 55 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 55 MGFRec: Towards Reinforced Reasoning Recommendation with Multiple Groundings and Feedback (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
|
| 5 | Huifeng Guo assigned | 48 | 3 | 100 SELF: Surrogate-light Feature Selection with Large Language Models in Deep Recommender Systems (2025) LLM-Derived Knowledge Infusion 65 LLM4Tag: Automatic Tagging System for Information Retrieval via Large Language Models (2025) Domain-Specific and Structured Retrieval |
|
| 6 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 47 | 3 | 58 Autonomous Reasoning-Retrieval for Large Language Model Based Recommendation (2025) Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval and Ranking 52 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
|
| 7 | Jizhi Zhang | 46 | 3 | 57 Navigating Large Language Models for Recommendation: From Architecture to Learning Paradigms and Deployment (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 56 Decoding Matters: Addressing Amplification Bias and Homogeneity Issue in Recommendations for Large Language Models (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
|
| 8 | Jianling Wang | 46 | 3 | 65 Fresh Content Recommendation at Scale: A Multi-funnel Solution and the Potential of LLMs (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 49 A Hierarchical Self-Attentive Model for Recommending User-Generated Item Lists (2019) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
|
| 9 | Jieming Zhu | 45 | 3 | 78 Towards Open-World Recommendation with Knowledge Augmentation from Large Language Models (2024) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation 67 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
|
| 10 | Xiao Zhang 0034 assigned | 45 | 3 | 77 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 MoRE: A Mixture of Reflectors Framework for Large Language Model-Based Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
|
| 11 | Bo Peng 0009 | 45 | 3 | 57 eCeLLM: Generalizing Large Language Models for E-commerce from Large-scale, High-quality Instruction Data (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 49 M2: Mixed Models With Preferences, Popularities and Transitions for Next-Basket Recommendation (2023) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
|
| 13 | Shuchang Liu 0001 | 43 | 3 | 54 Recommendation as Language Processing (RLP): A Unified Pretrain, Personalized Prompt & Predict Paradigm (P5) (2022) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation 51 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
|
| 14 | Fei Sun 0001 | 43 | 3 | 48 XDM: Improving Sequential Deep Matching with Unclicked User Behaviors for Recommender System (2022) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 47 Neural Re-ranking in Multi-stage Recommender Systems: A Review (2022) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
|
| 15 | Jiancan Wu | 43 | 3 | 54 AlphaDPO: Adaptive Reward Margin for Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 Towards Robust Alignment of Language Models: Distributionally Robustifying Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
|
| 16 | Junjie Zhang 0009 | 43 | 3 | 57 Tapping the Potential of Large Language Models as Recommender Systems: A Comprehensive Framework and Empirical Analysis (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 57 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
|
| 17 | Yang Song 0008 | 43 | 3 | 58 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) LLM-Enhanced Collaborative Filtering 48 LabelCraft: Empowering Short Video Recommendations with Automated Label Crafting (2024) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
|
| 18 | Wei Wei 0027 | 42 | 3 | 67 GraphGPT: Graph Instruction Tuning for Large Language Models (2024) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning 67 HiGPT: Heterogeneous Graph Language Model (2024) KG-Augmented LLM Reasoning |
|
| 19 | Hao Liu 0078 | 42 | 3 | 52 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 41 Mitigating Distribution Shifts in Sequential Recommendation: An Invariance Perspective (2025) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation |
|
| 20 | Han Li 0005 | 42 | 3 | 52 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 50 LEARN: Knowledge Adaptation from Large Language Model to Recommendation for Practical Industrial Application (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
|
| 21 | Yupeng Hou | 42 | 3 | 54 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 51 Recommendation as Instruction Following: A Large Language Model Empowered Recommendation Approach (2025) Personalized LLM Adaptation |
|
| 22 | Wei Guo 0006 | 42 | 3 | 54 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 48 Dataset Regeneration for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Recommendation Systems and Evaluation |
|
| 26 | Lantao Hu | 41 | 3 | 47 Comprehensive List Generation for Multi-Generator Reranking (2025) Recommendation with Search and Ranking 47 Unsupervised Ranking Ensemble Model for Recommendation (2024) Recommendation with Search and Ranking |
|
| 27 | Junwei Pan | 41 | 3 | 55 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 50 Incremental Learning for LLM-based Tokenization and Recommendation (2025) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 31 | Chunyang Wang 0001 | 40 | 3 | 47 MESA: Plugin Meta-Modulation for Transformer-Based Cold-Start Sequential Recommendation (2026) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling 45 Adaptive Continual Learning with User-Incremental Forward Compatibility for Meta-Augmented Cold-Start Recommenders (2026) Meta-Learning for Cold-Start Recommendation |
|
| 32 | Lianghao Xia | 40 | 3 | 77 RecLM: Recommendation Instruction Tuning (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 44 Representation Learning with Large Language Models for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
|
| 34 | Seongmin Park 0002 | 40 | 3 | 49 Temporal Linear Item-Item Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 48 MUFFIN: Mixture of User-Adaptive Frequency Filtering for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
|
| 35 | Ed H. Chi | 40 | 3 | 52 LLMs for User Interest Exploration in Large-scale Recommendation Systems (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 49 PLUM: Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Industrial-scale Generative Recommendations (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
|
| 36 | Qijiong Liu | 40 | 3 | 75 ONCE: Boosting Content-based Recommendation with Both Open- and Closed-source Large Language Models (2024) LLM-Derived Knowledge Infusion 53 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
|
| 37 | James Caverlee | 40 | 3 | 64 Language Models as Semantic Augmenters for Sequential Recommenders (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 47 Recommendation for New Users and New Items via Randomized Training and Mixture-of-Experts Transformation (2020) Content and Attribute-Based Cold-Start Recommendation |
|
| 38 | Chen Wang 0052 | 40 | 3 | 55 Cluster-Aware Item Prompt Learning for Session-Based Recommendation (2025) LLM-Enhanced Sequential Recommendation 46 Sequential Recommendation with Auxiliary Item Relationships via Multi-Relational Transformer (2022) Graph-Based Sequential and Session Recommendation |