Task-Adaptive Embedding Refinement via Test-time LLM Guidance

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.12487v1
• Date: Tue, 12 May 2026 17:58:27 GMT
• Title: Task-Adaptive Embedding Refinement via Test-time LLM Guidance
• Abstract summary: We explore the effectiveness of an LLM-guided query refinement paradigm for extending the usability of embedding models to challenging zero-shot search and classification tasks.<n>Our approach refines the embedding representation of a user query using feedback from a generative LLM on a small set of documents.<n>We conduct extensive experiments with state-of-the-art text embedding models across a diverse set of challenging search and classification benchmarks.
• Score: 3.6468227618496627
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Abstract: We explore the effectiveness of an LLM-guided query refinement paradigm for extending the usability of embedding models to challenging zero-shot search and classification tasks. Our approach refines the embedding representation of a user query using feedback from a generative LLM on a small set of documents, enabling embeddings to adapt in real time to the target task. We conduct extensive experiments with state-of-the-art text embedding models across a diverse set of challenging search and classification benchmarks. Empirical results indicate that LLM-guided query refinement yields consistent gains across all models and datasets, with relative improvements of up to +25% in literature search, intent detection, key-point matching, and nuanced query-instruction following. The refined queries improve ranking quality and induce clearer binary separation across the corpus, enabling the embedding space to better reflect the nuanced, task-specific constraints of each ad-hoc user query. Importantly, this expands the range of practical settings in which embedding models can be effectively deployed, making them a compelling alternative when costly LLM pipelines are not viable at corpus-scale. We release our experimental code for reproducibility, at https://github.com/IBM/task-aware-embedding-refinement.

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