Challenge: Conversational dense retrieval models lack interpretability, hindering intuitive understanding of model behaviors . a major limitation of conversational dense search is their lack of interpretability .
Approach: They propose to transform opaque session embeddings into explicit interpretable text . they propose to incorporate external interpretable query rewrites into the transformation process .
Outcome: The proposed approach yields more interpretable text and preserves original retrieval performance over baselines.

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Contextualized Query Embeddings for Conversational Search (2021.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: Existing approaches to conversational search use multiple inference pipelines that require long inference times . despite their effectiveness, such a pipeline often includes multiple neural models that require longer inference time.
Approach: They propose to integrate conversational query reformulation directly into a dense retrieval model . they use a dataset with pseudo-relevance labels to overcome the lack of training data .
Outcome: The proposed model rewrites conversational queries as dense representations in conversational search and open-domain question answering datasets.
ConvTrans: Transforming Web Search Sessions for Conversational Dense Retrieval (2022.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: Recent studies show that conversational dense retrieval is a promising technique for realizing conversational search, but its implementation is severely hindered by the lack of data.
Approach: They propose a method that transforms easily-accessible web search sessions into conversational search sessions to alleviate the data scarcity problem.
Outcome: The proposed method can transform easily-accessible web search sessions into conversational search sessions.
ChatRetriever: Adapting Large Language Models for Generalized and Robust Conversational Dense Retrieval (2024.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: a conversational search system requires accurate interpretation of user intent from complex multi-turn contexts.
Approach: They propose a dual-learning approach that adapts LLMs for retrieval via contrastive learning while enhancing the complex session understanding through masked instruction tuning.
Outcome: The proposed approach outperforms existing retrieval methods on five conversational search benchmarks.
Explicit Query Rewriting for Conversational Dense Retrieval (2022.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: In a conversational search scenario, a query might be context-dependent because some words are referred to previous expressions or omitted.
Approach: They propose a model that performs query rewriting and context modelling in a unified framework by highlighting relevant terms in the query context.
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AdaCQR: Enhancing Query Reformulation for Conversational Search via Sparse and Dense Retrieval Alignment (2025.coling-main)

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Challenge: Existing methods to address conversational search challenges are limited by one specific retrieval system.
Approach: They propose a framework to enhance generalizability of information-seeking queries by aligning reformulation models with term-based and semantic retrieval systems.
Outcome: The proposed framework outperforms existing methods in a more efficient framework.
History-Aware Conversational Dense Retrieval (2024.findings-acl)

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Challenge: Current approaches for conversational dense retrieval rely on fine-tuning a pre-trained ad-hoc retriever, which can be lengthy and noisy.
Approach: They propose a context-denoised query reformulation and automatic mining of supervision signals based on historical turns.
Outcome: The proposed system improves on two public conversational search datasets.
UniConv: Unifying Retrieval and Response Generation for Large Language Models in Conversations (2025.acl-long)

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Challenge: Existing conversational search systems are usually built with two different models . this separation restricts the system from leveraging the model's intrinsic knowledge simultaneously . Existing studies for developing unified models cannot fully address the aspects of understanding conversational context, managing retrieval independently, and generating responses.
Approach: They propose to unify dense retrieval and response generation for large language models in conversation by fine-tuning and mitigating data discrepancy.
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ConvGQR: Generative Query Reformulation for Conversational Search (2023.acl-long)

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Challenge: Existing methods to determine a good search query from the whole conversation context are expensive and often lead to sub-optimal results.
Approach: They propose a framework to reformulate conversational queries based on generative pre-trained language models (PLMs) they propose generative knowledge infusion mechanism to optimize query reformulation and retrieval.
Outcome: Extensive experiments on four conversational search datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of ConvGQR.
Decoding Dense Embeddings: Sparse Autoencoders for Interpreting and Discretizing Dense Retrieval (2025.emnlp-main)

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Challenge: Existing sparse retrieval methods suffer from a lack of interpretability . we propose a new interpretability framework that decomposes dense embeddings into distinct, interpretable latent concepts.
Approach: They propose a new interpretability framework that leveragesSparse Autoencoders to decompose uninterpretable dense embeddings fromDPR models into distinct, interpretable latent concepts.
Outcome: The proposed interpretability framework achieves high index-space and computational efficiency while maintaining robust performance across vocabulary and semantic mismatches.
Enhancing Conversational Search: Large Language Model-Aided Informative Query Rewriting (2023.findings-emnlp)

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Challenge: Existing approaches to rewrite context-dependent queries lack sufficient information for optimal retrieval performance.
Approach: They propose to use large language models (LLMs) as query rewriters to generate informative queries through well-designed instructions.
Outcome: The proposed approach improves performance on the QReCC dataset compared to human rewrites .

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