Sequential Recommender Systems: Challenges, Progress and Prospects

Sequential Recommender Systems: Challenges, Progress and Prospects

Shoujin Wang, Liang Hu, Yan Wang, Longbing Cao, Quan Z. Sheng, Mehmet Orgun

Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence
Survey track. Pages 6332-6338. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2019/883

The emerging topic of sequential recommender systems (SRSs) has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Different from the conventional recommender systems (RSs) including collaborative filtering and content-based filtering, SRSs try to understand and model the sequential user behaviors, the interactions between users and items, and the evolution of users’ preferences and item popularity over time. SRSs involve the above aspects for more precise characterization of user contexts, intent and goals, and item consumption trend, leading to more accurate, customized and dynamic recommendations. In this paper, we provide a systematic review on SRSs. We first present the characteristics of SRSs, and then summarize and categorize the key challenges in this research area, followed by the corresponding research progress consisting of the most recent and representative developments on this topic. Finally, we discuss the important research directions in this vibrant area.
Keywords:
Machine Learning: Recommender Systems
Humans and AI: Personalization and User Modeling
Uncertainty in AI: Sequential Decision Making
Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Preference Modelling and Preference-Based Reasoning