mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

A Survey of Personalized Large Language Models: Progress and Future Directions

arXiv 2502.11528 ↗First posted 17 Feb 2025cs.AIcited by 71

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Abstract (arXiv)

Large Language Models (LLMs) excel in handling general knowledge tasks, yet they struggle with user-specific personalization, such as understanding individual emotions, writing styles, and preferences. Personalized Large Language Models (PLLMs) tackle these challenges by leveraging individual user data, such as user profiles, historical dialogues, content, and interactions, to deliver responses that are contextually relevant and tailored to each user's specific needs. This is a highly valuable research topic, as PLLMs can significantly enhance user satisfaction and have broad applications in conversational agents, recommendation systems, emotion recognition, medical assistants, and more. This survey reviews recent advancements in PLLMs from three technical perspectives: prompting for personalized context (input level), finetuning for personalized adapters (model level), and alignment for personalized preferences (objective level). To provide deeper insights, we also discuss current limitations and outline several promising directions for future research. Updated information about this survey can be found at the https://github.com/JiahongLiu21/Awesome-Personalized-Large-Language-Models.

Key facts. Cited by 71 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 111 of its 167 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 17 Feb 2025.

Builds on

111 of 167 references.

References · 111

  1. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,419
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  3. 2021LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Modelscited by 14,380
  4. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 14,132
  5. 2019Sentence-BERT: Sentence Embeddings using Siamese BERT-Networkscited by 9,170
  6. 2023Direct Preference Optimization: Your Language Model is Secretly a Reward Modelcited by 8,065
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  12. 2022Scaling Instruction-Finetuned Language Modelscited by 3,024
38 more
  1. 2023A Survey of Large Language Modelscited by 2,576
  2. 2017Billion-scale similarity search with GPUscited by 2,497
  3. 2023Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 2,212
  4. 2024A Survey on LLM-as-a-Judgecited by 1,423
  5. 2023A Survey on Evaluation of Large Language Modelscited by 1,242
  6. 2021Unsupervised Dense Information Retrieval with Contrastive Learningcited by 1,216
  7. 2022Few-Shot Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning is Better and Cheaper than In-Context Learningcited by 896
  8. 2022GLM-130B: An Open Bilingual Pre-trained Modelcited by 843
  9. 2024Evaluating Very Long-Term Conversational Memory of LLM Agentscited by 830
  10. 2024LongMemEval: Benchmarking Chat Assistants on Long-Term Interactive Memorycited by 707
  11. 2024A Survey on the Memory Mechanism of Large Language Model based Agentscited by 634
  12. 2024A Survey on RAG Meeting LLMs: Towards Retrieval-Augmented Large Language Modelscited by 452
  13. 2023LaMP: When Large Language Models Meet Personalizationcited by 437
  14. 2023Fine-Grained Human Feedback Gives Better Rewards for Language Model Trainingcited by 401
  15. 2023Fine-Tuning Language Models with Just Forward Passescited by 345
  16. 2023Personalized Soups: Personalized Large Language Model Alignment via Post-hoc Parameter Mergingcited by 280
  17. 2024Personal LLM Agents: Insights and Survey about the Capability, Efficiency and Securitycited by 260
  18. 2023Rewarded soups: towards Pareto-optimal alignment by interpolating weights fine-tuned on diverse rewardscited by 243
  19. 2024MobileLLM: Optimizing Sub-billion Parameter Language Models for On-Device Use Casescited by 223
  20. 2024Two Tales of Persona in LLMs: A Survey of Role-Playing and Personalizationcited by 208
  21. 2015Building End-To-End Dialogue Systems Using Generative Hierarchical Neural Network Modelscited by 207
  22. 2023Knowledge Editing for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 194
  23. 2024A Comprehensive Study of Knowledge Editing for Large Language Modelscited by 163
  24. 2024Personalizing Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback with Variational Preference Learningcited by 155
  25. 2025Do LLMs Recognize Your Preferences? Evaluating Personalized Preference Following in LLMscited by 148
  26. 2024Continual Learning for Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 147
  27. 2024Hello Again! LLM-powered Personalized Agent for Long-term Dialoguecited by 123
  28. 2013A Theoretical Analysis of NDCG Type Ranking Measurescited by 119
  29. 2024Personalized Steering of Large Language Models: Versatile Steering Vectors Through Bi-directional Preference Optimizationcited by 118
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  31. 2024Personalization of Large Language Models: A Surveycited by 104
  32. 2024Optimization Methods for Personalizing Large Language Models through Retrieval Augmentationcited by 99
  33. 2024LongLaMP: A Benchmark for Personalized Long-form Text Generationcited by 97
  34. 2024Decoding-Time Language Model Alignment with Multiple Objectivescited by 94
  35. 2023Pearl: Personalizing Large Language Model Writing Assistants with Generation-Calibrated Retrieverscited by 92
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  37. 2024Democratizing Large Language Models via Personalized Parameter-Efficient Fine-tuningcited by 90
  38. 2024Aligning to Thousands of Preferences via System Message Generalizationcited by 84

50 most cited of 111 All 111 (JSON)

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 22; 2026: 49.

71 papers.

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  1. 2025PersonaMem-v2: Towards Personalized Intelligence via Learning Implicit User Personas and Agentic Memorycited by 88
  2. 2026A Survey of Agent Memory in the Second Half: Towards Self-Evolving and Long-Horizon Agentscited by 44
  3. 2025Implicit Reasoning in Large Language Models: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 43
  4. 2025Rethinking Memory in LLM based Agents: Representations, Operations, and Emerging Topicscited by 36
  5. 2025The Personality Illusion: Revealing Dissociation Between Self-Reports & Behavior in LLMscited by 36
  6. 2025A Survey of Personalization: From RAG to Agentcited by 27
  7. 2025Teaching Language Models to Evolve with Users: Dynamic Profile Modeling for Personalized Alignmentcited by 24
  8. 2025Open Character Training: Shaping the Persona of AI Assistants through Constitutional AIcited by 24
  9. 2025The Rise of Small Language Models in Healthcare: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 18
  10. 2025PRIME: Large Language Model Personalization with Cognitive Dual-Memory and Personalized Thought Processcited by 18
  11. 2025Instant Personalized Large Language Model Adaptation via Hypernetworkcited by 18
  12. 2026A Survey on LLM-based Conversational User Simulationcited by 18
38 more
  1. 2025CoSteer: Collaborative Decoding-Time Personalization via Local Delta Steeringcited by 13
  2. 2026VitaBench 2.0: Evaluating Personalized and Proactive Agents in Long-Term User Interactionscited by 12
  3. 2026Beyond Similarity: Trustworthy Memory Search for Personal AI Agentscited by 12
  4. 2026PersonaVLM: Long-Term Personalized Multimodal LLMscited by 11
  5. 2025CoPL: Collaborative Preference Learning for Personalizing LLMscited by 10
  6. 2025Embedding-to-Prefix: Parameter-Efficient Personalization for Pre-Trained Large Language Modelscited by 10
  7. 2026Probability-Entropy Calibration: An Elastic Indicator for Adaptive Fine-tuningcited by 9
  8. 2025Towards Geometry Problem Solving in the Large Model Era: A Surveycited by 8
  9. 2026User as Code: Executable Memory for Personalized Agentscited by 7
  10. 2026A Mechanistic View on Video Generation as World Models: State and Dynamicscited by 6
  11. 2026SpecSteer: Synergizing Local Context and Global Reasoning for Efficient Personalized Generationcited by 6
  12. 2026Towards trustworthy agentic AI: a comprehensive survey of safety, robustness, privacy, and system securitycited by 5
  13. 2026Capabilities and Fundamental Limits of Latent Chain-of-Thoughtcited by 4
  14. 2026EXACT: Explicit Attribute-Guided Decoding-Time Personalizationcited by 4
  15. 2025A Comprehensive Review on Harnessing Large Language Models to Overcome Recommender System Challengescited by 3
  16. 2026Architecting Trust in Artificial Epistemic Agentscited by 3
  17. 2026Ads in AI Chatbots? An Analysis of How Large Language Models Navigate Conflicts of Interestcited by 3
  18. 2026User as Engram: Internalizing Per-User Memory as Local Parametric Editscited by 3
  19. 2025LearnLens: LLM-Enabled Personalised, Curriculum-Grounded Feedback with Educators in the Loopcited by 2
  20. 2025Agent0: Leveraging LLM Agents to Discover Multi-value Features from Text for Enhanced Recommendationscited by 2
  21. 2025Tailored untruths: How personalisation challenges LLM safeguardscited by 2
  22. 2025HyperbolicRAG: Enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Hyperbolic Representationscited by 2
  23. 2026AI and My Values: User Perceptions of LLMs' Ability to Extract, Embody, and Explain Human Values from Casual Conversationscited by 2
  24. 2026Contextualized Visual Personalization in Vision-Language Modelscited by 2
  25. 2026Neuromem: A Granular Decomposition of the Streaming Lifecycle in External Memory for LLMscited by 2
  26. 2026SIEVE: Sample-Efficient Parametric Learning from Natural Languagecited by 2
  27. 2026Self-Evolving LLM Memory Extraction Across Heterogeneous Taskscited by 2
  28. 2026Enhancing Zero-shot Personalized Image Aesthetics Assessment with Profile-aware Multimodal LLMcited by 2
  29. 2026Preference Heads in Large Language Models: A Mechanistic Framework for Interpretable Personalizationcited by 2
  30. 2026FlatLand: Personalized Graph Federated Learning via Tailored Lorentz Spacecited by 2
  31. 2025Towards Effective Model Editing for LLM Personalizationcited by 1
  32. 2026A Component-Based Survey of Interactions between Large Language Models and Multi-Armed Banditscited by 1
  33. 2026High-Stakes Personalization: Rethinking LLM Customization for Individual Investor Decision-Makingcited by 1
  34. 2026Response-Aware User Memory Selection for LLM Personalizationcited by 1
  35. 2026ChildEval: When large language models meet children's personalitiescited by 1
  36. 2026MobileMem: Learning from a Year of Mobile Experiencescited by 1
  37. 2026Hypotheses-Guided Self Distillation for Continual Personalizationcited by 1
  38. 2026Memory Has Geometry: Non-Uniform Geometric Memory for Long-Horizon Personalized AIcited by 1

50 most cited of 71 All 71 (JSON)