Think, But Don't Tell: Implicit Reasoning for LLM-based Sequential Recommendation via Multi-Teacher Distillation
Abstract
Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate significant potential in sequential recommendation, and leveraging their Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning capabilities can further unlock profound user preference understanding. However, deploying explicit CoT reasoning in real-world systems faces prohibitive challenges: (i) the conflict between the large model scale required for high-fidelity reasoning and the resource constraints of online services, and (ii) the excessive latency introduced by auto-regressive rationale generation. To address these issues, we propose I Reasoning via Multi-Teacher Distillation (IRMD), a novel framework that 'compiles' the reasoning abilities of large teacher LLMs into a lightweight student Small Language Model (SLM). IRMD first employs a Multi-Teacher CoT Synthesis with Dual-Constraint Rejection Sampling module to generate a high-quality, diverse set of reasoning paths. Subsequently, our Annealing-Scheduled Reasoning Distillation strategy progressively trains the student to internalize this logic, transitioning from mimicking explicit CoT to performing purely implicit reasoning. Extensive experiments on multiple benchmark datasets demonstrate that IRMD significantly outperforms state-of-the-art baselines in both recommendation accuracy and inference efficiency. Our code is accessible at https://github.com/Cxx-0/IRMD.
Assigned reviewers
| # | Reviewer | Match | Why (closest evidence publications in the taxonomy) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bo Chen 0023 | 67 | 79 ReLLa: Retrieval-enhanced Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 79 Full-Stack Optimized Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 2 | Junjie Zhang 0009 | 54 | 64 Tapping the Potential of Large Language Models as Recommender Systems: A Comprehensive Framework and Empirical Analysis (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 64 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 54 Frequency-Augmented Mixture-of-Heterogeneous-Experts Framework for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 3 | James Caverlee | 51 | 85 Language Models as Semantic Augmenters for Sequential Recommenders (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 54 Consistency-Aware Recommendation for User-Generated Item List Continuation (2020) Multimodal Recommendation for Domain Applications 54 Sequential Recommendation for Cold-start Users with Meta Transitional Learning (2021) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
Area chair
| Area chair | Match | |
|---|---|---|
| Pengyue Jia | 55 |
Area-chair candidates (6)
| Pengyue Jia assigned | 55 | 10 papers | |
| Maolin Wang 0001 | 55 | 15 papers | |
| Yanan Niu | 52 | 15 papers | |
| Kun Gai | 51 | 5 papers | |
| Leyu Lin | 51 | 15 papers | |
| Xin Xin 0003 | 49 | 10 papers |
Candidates from the panel ranked by match score
| # | Reviewer | Match | Load | Why | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bo Chen 0023 assigned | 67 | 3 | 79 ReLLa: Retrieval-enhanced Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 79 Full-Stack Optimized Large Language Models for Lifelong Sequential Behavior Comprehension in Recommendation (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 2 | Bo Peng 0009 | 58 | 3 | 64 eCeLLM: Generalizing Large Language Models for E-commerce from Large-scale, High-quality Instruction Data (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 59 M2: Mixed Models With Preferences, Popularities and Transitions for Next-Basket Recommendation (2023) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation |
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| 3 | Jieming Zhu | 58 | 3 | 74 ROMA: Recommendation-Oriented Language Model Adaptation Using Multi-Modal Multi-Domain Item Sequences (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 Efficient and Deployable Knowledge Infusion for Open-World Recommendations via Large Language Models (2026) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 4 | Jianling Wang | 58 | 3 | 72 LLMs for User Interest Exploration in Large-scale Recommendation Systems (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 71 Fresh Content Recommendation at Scale: A Multi-funnel Solution and the Potential of LLMs (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 5 | Zhengyi Yang 0007 | 57 | 3 | 65 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 55 A Bi-Step Grounding Paradigm for Large Language Models in Recommendation Systems (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 6 | Bowen Zheng 0005 | 57 | 3 | 78 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 54 Reciprocal Sequential Recommendation (2023) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 7 | Hao Liu 0078 | 55 | 3 | 84 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 51 Mitigating Distribution Shifts in Sequential Recommendation: An Invariance Perspective (2025) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation |
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| 8 | Yang Zhang 0072 | 55 | 3 | 64 Preliminary Study on Incremental Learning for Large Language Model-based Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 61 AlpsBench: An LLM Personalization Benchmark for Real-Dialogue Memorization and Preference Alignment (2026) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 10 | Chongming Gao | 55 | 3 | 66 Large Language Models are Learnable Planners for Long-Term Recommendation (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization 62 Tunable LLM-based Proactive Recommendation Agent (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 12 | Junjie Zhang 0009 assigned | 54 | 3 | 64 Tapping the Potential of Large Language Models as Recommender Systems: A Comprehensive Framework and Empirical Analysis (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 64 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 13 | Jizhi Zhang | 54 | 3 | 64 Navigating Large Language Models for Recommendation: From Architecture to Learning Paradigms and Deployment (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 60 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 14 | Fei Sun 0001 | 54 | 3 | 60 LoRec: Combating Poisons with Large Language Model for Robust Sequential Recommendation (2024) Robustness to Noise and Distribution Shift 54 XDM: Improving Sequential Deep Matching with Unclicked User Behaviors for Recommender System (2022) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 15 | Jiancan Wu | 53 | 3 | 81 LLaRA: Large Language-Recommendation Assistant (2024) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 81 Large Language Model Can Interpret Latent Space of Sequential Recommender (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation |
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| 16 | Junwei Pan | 53 | 3 | 76 Cross-Scale Collaboration between LLMs and Lightweight Sequential Recommenders with Domain-Specific Latent Reasoning (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 67 Empowering Large Language Model for Sequential Recommendation via Multimodal Embeddings and Semantic IDs (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 17 | Han Li 0005 | 53 | 3 | 78 Enhancing Sequential Recommender with Large Language Models for Joint Video and Comment Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 58 LEARN: Knowledge Adaptation from Large Language Model to Recommendation for Practical Industrial Application (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 18 | Wei Guo 0006 | 53 | 3 | 70 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 55 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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| 19 | Shuchang Liu 0001 | 52 | 3 | 60 DLCRec: A Novel Approach for Managing Diversity in LLM-Based Recommender Systems (2025) Preference Alignment and Optimization 59 Recommendation as Language Processing (RLP): A Unified Pretrain, Personalized Prompt & Predict Paradigm (P5) (2022) Knowledge Infusion and Open-World Augmentation |
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| 21 | Qijiong Liu | 52 | 3 | 75 Can LLMs Outshine Conventional Recommenders? A Comparative Evaluation (2025) Efficiency and Deployment 60 ONCE: Boosting Content-based Recommendation with Both Open- and Closed-source Large Language Models (2024) LLM-Derived Knowledge Infusion |
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| 22 | Xiao Zhang 0034 | 51 | 3 | 65 MoRE: A Mixture of Reflectors Framework for Large Language Model-Based Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 56 Large Language Models Enhanced Collaborative Filtering (2024) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 23 | Huifeng Guo | 51 | 3 | 66 LLMTreeRec: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models for Cold-Start Recommendations (2025) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization 61 Prompt Tuning as User Inherent Profile Inference Machine (2025) Efficiency and Deployment |
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| 25 | Min Hou 0004 | 51 | 3 | 87 WeaveRec: An LLM-Based Cross-Domain Sequential Recommendation Framework with Model Merging (2026) Efficiency and Deployment 64 RecCocktail: A Generalizable and Efficient Framework for LLM-Based Recommendation (2026) Preference Alignment and Optimization |
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| 26 | James Caverlee assigned | 51 | 3 | 85 Language Models as Semantic Augmenters for Sequential Recommenders (2026) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 54 Consistency-Aware Recommendation for User-Generated Item List Continuation (2020) Multimodal Recommendation for Domain Applications |
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| 27 | Chen Wang 0052 | 51 | 3 | 67 Cluster-Aware Item Prompt Learning for Session-Based Recommendation (2025) LLM-Enhanced Sequential Recommendation 54 Sequential Recommendation with Auxiliary Item Relationships via Multi-Relational Transformer (2022) Graph-Based Sequential and Session Recommendation |
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| 29 | Seongmin Park 0002 | 51 | 3 | 57 Temporal Linear Item-Item Model for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Efficient and Long-Sequence Sequential Recommendation 54 MUFFIN: Mixture of User-Adaptive Frequency Filtering for Sequential Recommendation (2025) Sequential Recommendation with User Modeling and Profiling |
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| 30 | Jie Jiang 0015 | 50 | 3 | 81 Pre-train, Align, and Disentangle: Empowering Sequential Recommendation with Large Language Models (2025) Sequential and Session-based Recommendation 76 Cross-Scale Collaboration between LLMs and Lightweight Sequential Recommenders with Domain-Specific Latent Reasoning (2026) Generative Recommendation and Item Tokenization |
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| 31 | Yang Song 0008 | 50 | 3 | 54 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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| 32 | Lantao Hu | 50 | 3 | 55 Modeling User Fatigue for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation 53 Comprehensive List Generation for Multi-Generator Reranking (2025) Recommendation with Search and Ranking |
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| 33 | Yupeng Hou | 49 | 3 | 71 Large Language Models are Zero-Shot Rankers for Recommender Systems (2024) Efficiency and Deployment 53 Adapting Large Language Models by Integrating Collaborative Semantics for Recommendation (2024) Collaborative-Semantic Representation Alignment |
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| 34 | Xuanhua Yang | 49 | 3 | 66 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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| 36 | Yongjing Hao | 49 | 3 | 55 Feature-Level Deeper Self-Attention Network With Contrastive Learning for Sequential Recommendation (2023) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation 52 Learnable Model Augmentation Contrastive Learning for Sequential Recommendation (2024) Contrastive and Self-Supervised Sequential Recommendation |