One Adapts to Any: Meta Reward Modeling for Personalized LLM Alignment
Abstract
Alignment of Large Language Models (LLMs) aims to align outputs with human preferences, and personalized alignment further adapts models to individual users. This relies on personalized reward models that capture user-specific preferences and automatically provide individualized feedback. However, developing these models faces two critical challenges: the scarcity of feedback from individual users and the need for efficient adaptation to unseen users. We argue that addressing these constraints requires a paradigm shift from fitting static user models to ''learning to learn'' adaptation. To realize this, we propose Meta Reward Modeling (MRM), which reformulates personalized reward modeling as a meta-learning problem. Specifically, we represent each user's reward model as a weighted combination of base reward functions, and optimize the initialization of these weights using a Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning (MAML)-style framework to support fast adaptation under limited feedback. To ensure robustness, we introduce the Robust Personalization Objective (RPO), which places greater emphasis on hard-to-learn users during meta optimization. Extensive experiments on personalized preference datasets validate that MRM enhances few-shot personalization, improves user robustness, and consistently outperforms baselines. We release code at https://github.com/ModalityDance/MRM.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yingyi Zhang 0001 | 43 | 75 MTA: A Merge-then-Adapt Framework for Personalized Large Language Models (2026) LLM-Based Sequential Recommendation 56 Bridging Personalization and AI: From RAG to Agent (2026) Personalized and Conversational RAG 56 A Survey of Personalization: From RAG to Agent (2026) Personalized and Conversational RAG |
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| 2 | Dan Luo 0004 | 39 | 41 Flow Matching Based Sequential Recommender Model (2025) Diffusion and Flow Recommenders 39 Unbiased Learning-to-Rank Needs Unconfounded Propensity Estimation (2024) Unbiased Learning to Rank 39 Model-based Unbiased Learning to Rank (2023) Unbiased Learning to Rank |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Pengyue Jia | 45 |
Area-chair candidates (5)
| Pengyue Jia assigned | 45 | 10 papers | |
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 42 | 15 papers | |
| Jun Xu 0001 COI: co-author | 42 | 2 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 41 | 5 papers | |
| Xiaoxue Zang COI: co-author | 41 | 4 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 COI: co-author | 64 | 3 | 74 AlphaDPO: Adaptive Reward Margin for Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 74 Towards Robust Alignment of Language Models: Distributionally Robustifying Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 2 | Yang Zhang 0072 COI: co-author | 62 | 3 | 80 Don't Start Over: A Cost-Effective Framework for Migrating Personalized Prompts Between LLMs (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 74 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 3 | Chongming Gao COI: co-author | 60 | 3 | 100 Reinforced Prompt Personalization for Recommendation with Large Language Models (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 80 Don't Start Over: A Cost-Effective Framework for Migrating Personalized Prompts Between LLMs (2026) Efficiency and Deployment |
|
| 4 | Jizhi Zhang COI: co-author | 55 | 3 | 74 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization 74 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 5 | Jiancan Wu COI: co-author | 54 | 3 | 74 AlphaDPO: Adaptive Reward Margin for Direct Preference Optimization (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 74 Larger or Smaller Reward Margins to Select Preferences for LLM Alignment? (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 6 | Junjie Zhang 0009 | 47 | 3 | 74 Recommendation as Instruction Following: A Large Language Model Empowered Recommendation Approach (2025) Personalized LLM Adaptation 55 STARec: An Efficient Agent Framework for Recommender Systems via Autonomous Deliberate Reasoning (2025) RL Training of Search Agents |
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| 7 | Keqin Bao COI: co-author | 46 | 3 | 74 TALLRec: An Effective and Efficient Tuning Framework to Align Large Language Model with Recommendation (2023) Preference Alignment and Optimization 71 Item-side Fairness of Large Language Model-based Recommendation System (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 8 | Yupeng Hou | 46 | 3 | 74 Recommendation as Instruction Following: A Large Language Model Empowered Recommendation Approach (2025) Personalized LLM Adaptation 49 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 9 | Xiao Zhang 0034 | 46 | 3 | 75 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 54 Similarity = Value? Consultation Value-Assessment and Alignment for Personalized Search (2025) Personalized and Context-Aware Retrieval |
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| 10 | Bo Chen 0023 | 46 | 3 | 59 ELCoRec: Enhance Language Understanding with Co-Propagation of Numerical and Categorical Features for Recommendation (2024) LLM-Collaborative Filtering Integration 50 ReLLa: Retrieval-enhanced Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 11 | Wenlin Zhang 0001 | 45 | 3 | 74 MTA: A Merge-then-Adapt Framework for Personalized Large Language Models (2026) Personalized LLM Adaptation 53 LLMTreeRec: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models for Cold-Start Recommendations (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 13 | Huifeng Guo COI: co-author | 45 | 3 | 65 Prompt Tuning as User Inherent Profile Inference Machine (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 53 LLMTreeRec: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models for Cold-Start Recommendations (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 14 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 45 | 3 | 56 Autonomous Reasoning-Retrieval for Large Language Model Based Recommendation (2025) Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval and Ranking 50 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 15 | Jieming Zhu | 44 | 3 | 61 ROMA: Recommendation-Oriented Language Model Adaptation Using Multi-Modal Multi-Domain Item Sequences (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 49 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 16 | Xuanhua Yang | 43 | 3 | 59 Breaking the Relevance-Diversity Seesaw: Hierarchical LLM Reasoning with RL for Industrial Novelty Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization 51 GenRec: A Preference-Oriented Generative Framework for Large-Scale Recommendation (2026) Generative Retrieval and Ranking |
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| 17 | Junwei Pan COI: co-author | 43 | 3 | 51 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 50 Pre-train, Align, and Disentangle: Empowering Sequential Recommendation with Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 18 | Shuchang Liu 0001 | 43 | 3 | 57 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 53 Recommendation as Language Processing (RLP): A Unified Pretrain, Personalized Prompt & Predict Paradigm (P5) (2022) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 19 | Yingyi Zhang 0001 assigned | 43 | 3 | 75 MTA: A Merge-then-Adapt Framework for Personalized Large Language Models (2026) LLM-Based Sequential Recommendation 56 Bridging Personalization and AI: From RAG to Agent (2026) Personalized and Conversational RAG |
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| 20 | Hao Liu 0078 | 43 | 3 | 49 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 43 Mitigating Fine-tuning Bias: A Parameter-Efficient Debiasing Framework for Large Language Models (2026) Bias Mitigation Methods |
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| 22 | Lichan Hong | 42 | 3 | 47 Balancing Fine-tuning and RAG: A Hybrid Strategy for Dynamic LLM Recommendation Updates (2025) RAG for Domain Applications 46 PLUM: Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Industrial-scale Generative Recommendations (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 24 | Yongqi Li 0001 COI: author | 42 | 3 | 69 R$^2$ec: Towards Large Recommender Models with Reasoning (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 47 Data-efficient Fine-tuning for LLM-based Recommendation (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 25 | Ed H. Chi | 42 | 3 | 49 LLMs for User Interest Exploration in Large-scale Recommendation Systems (2024) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 46 PLUM: Adapting Pre-trained Language Models for Industrial-scale Generative Recommendations (2026) Item Tokenization and Semantic IDs |
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| 26 | Han Li 0005 | 42 | 3 | 52 LEARN: Knowledge Adaptation from Large Language Model to Recommendation for Practical Industrial Application (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 48 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 27 | Min Hou 0004 | 42 | 3 | 73 RecCocktail: A Generalizable and Efficient Framework for LLM-Based Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization 48 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 28 | Shijie Wang 0002 | 42 | 3 | 71 CheatAgent: Attacking LLM-Empowered Recommender Systems via LLM Agent (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 68 ReRec: Reasoning-Augmented LLM-based Recommendation Assistant via Reinforcement Fine-tuning (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 30 | Jialong Wu 0007 | 41 | 3 | 80 PROPER: A Progressive Learning Framework for Personalized Large Language Models with Group-Level Adaptation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 43 Causal Prompting: Debiasing Large Language Model Prompting Based on Front-Door Adjustment (2025) Bias Mitigation Methods |
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| 31 | Yuchen Li 0006 | 41 | 3 | 45 S2phere: Semi-Supervised Pre-training for Web Search over Heterogeneous Learning to Rank Data (2023) Web-Scale Learning to Rank 43 M2oERank: Multi-Objective Mixture-of-Experts Enhanced Ranking for Satisfaction-Oriented Web Search (2025) Web-Scale Learning to Rank |
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| 32 | Jianling Wang | 41 | 3 | 48 Fresh Content Recommendation at Scale: A Multi-funnel Solution and the Potential of LLMs (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 46 LLMs for User Interest Exploration in Large-scale Recommendation Systems (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 33 | Bo Peng 0009 | 41 | 3 | 53 eCeLLM: Generalizing Large Language Models for E-commerce from Large-scale, High-quality Instruction Data (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 44 M2: Mixed Models With Preferences, Popularities and Transitions for Next-Basket Recommendation (2023) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
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| 34 | Wei Guo 0006 | 41 | 3 | 48 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 41 Breaking the Bottleneck: User-Specific Optimization and Real-Time Inference Integration for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |