AlphaCast: A Human Wisdom-LLM Intelligence Co-Reasoning Framework for Interactive Time Series Forecasting
On the map: LLM reasoning → Time series reasoning
Abstract (arXiv)
Time series forecasting plays a crucial role in decision-making across many real-world applications. Despite substantial progress, most existing methods still treat forecasting as a static, single-pass regression problem. In contrast, human experts form predictions through iterative reasoning that integrates temporal features, domain knowledge, case-based references, and supplementary context, with continuous refinement. In this work, we propose Alphacast, an interaction-driven agentic reasoning framework that enables accurate time series forecasting with training-free large language models. Alphacast reformulates forecasting as an expert-like process and organizes it into a multi-stage workflow involving context preparation, reasoning-based generation, and reflective evaluation, transforming forecasting from a single-pass output into a multi-turn, autonomous interaction process. To support diverse perspectives commonly considered by human experts, we develop a lightweight toolkit comprising a feature set, a knowledge base, a case library, and a contextual pool that provides external support for LLM-based reasoning. Extensive experiments across multiple benchmarks show that Alphacast generally outperforms representative baselines. Code is available at this repository: https://github.com/echo01-ai/AlphaCast.
Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Time series reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 37 of its 64 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 Nov 2025.
Builds on
37 of 64 references.
Closest ancestors · 1
Same direction, newest first
Other references · 36
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,355
- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,072
- 2023Reflexion: Language Agents with Verbal Reinforcement Learningcited by 4,064
- 2025Gemini 2.5: Pushing the Frontier with Advanced Reasoning, Multimodality, Long Context, and Next Generation Agentic Capabilitiescited by 3,655
- 2022A Time Series is Worth 64 Words: Long-term Forecasting with Transformerscited by 1,981
- 2021WebGPT: Browser-assisted question-answering with human feedbackcited by 1,722
- 2021Autoformer: Decomposition Transformers with Auto-Correlation for Long-Term Series Forecastingcited by 1,654
- 2022Are Transformers Effective for Time Series Forecasting?cited by 1,400
- 2022Least-to-Most Prompting Enables Complex Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 1,397
24 more
- 2022TimesNet: Temporal 2D-Variation Modeling for General Time Series Analysiscited by 1,030
- 2023iTransformer: Inverted Transformers Are Effective for Time Series Forecastingcited by 906
- 2024Chronos: Learning the Language of Time Seriescited by 712
- 2023Time-LLM: Time Series Forecasting by Reprogramming Large Language Modelscited by 680
- 2023A decoder-only foundation model for time-series forecastingcited by 650
- 2023One Fits All:Power General Time Series Analysis by Pretrained LMcited by 615
- 2024TFB: Towards Comprehensive and Fair Benchmarking of Time Series Forecasting Methodscited by 242
- 2024TimeXer: Empowering Transformers for Time Series Forecasting with Exogenous Variablescited by 241
- 2024Deep Time Series Models: A Comprehensive Survey and Benchmarkcited by 191
- 2025Plan-and-Act: Improving Planning of Agents for Long-Horizon Taskscited by 190
- 2022PromptCast: A New Prompt-based Learning Paradigm for Time Series Forecastingcited by 170
- 2023TEMPO: Prompt-based Generative Pre-trained Transformer for Time Series Forecastingcited by 170
- 2025Sundial: A Family of Highly Capable Time Series Foundation Modelscited by 168
- 2020Deep Learning for Time Series Forecasting: Tutorial and Literature Surveycited by 117
- 2020Forecasting day-ahead electricity prices: A review of state-of-the-art algorithms, best practices and an open-access benchmarkcited by 105
- 2021Neural basis expansion analysis with exogenous variables: Forecasting electricity prices with NBEATSxcited by 63
- 2024LSTPrompt: Large Language Models as Zero-Shot Time Series Forecasters by Long-Short-Term Promptingcited by 56
- 2024Towards a General Time Series Forecasting Model with Unified Representation and Adaptive Transfercited by 31
- 2025How Can Time Series Analysis Benefit From Multiple Modalities? A Survey and Outlookcited by 20
- 2025TimePro: Efficient Multivariate Long-term Time Series Forecasting with Variable- and Time-Aware Hyper-statecited by 16
- 2025Improving Time Series Forecasting via Instance-aware Post-hoc Revisioncited by 14
- 2024Rethinking the Power of Timestamps for Robust Time Series Forecasting: A Global-Local Fusion Perspectivecited by 13
- 2024Efficient Time Series Processing for Transformers and State-Space Models through Token Mergingcited by 7
- 2024How Much Can Time-related Features Enhance Time Series Forecasting?cited by 6
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 11.
11 papers.
- 2026Cast-R1: Learning Tool-Augmented Sequential Decision Policies for Time Series Forecastingcited by 9
- 2026Position: Beyond Model-Centric Prediction -- Agentic Time Series Forecastingcited by 8
- 2026Nexus : An Agentic Framework for Time Series Forecastingcited by 4
- 2026AnomaMind: Agentic Time Series Anomaly Detection with Tool-Augmented Reasoningcited by 3
- 2026CastFlow: Learning Role-Specialized Agentic Workflows for Time Series Forecastingcited by 1
- 2026TSQAgent: Rating Time Series Data Quality via Dedicated Agentic Reasoningcited by 1
- 2026CoGenCast: A Coupled Autoregressive-Flow Generative Framework for Time Series Forecastingcited by 0
- 2026ReasonCast: Towards Explainable Time Series Forecasting with Reasoningcited by 0
- 2026CastFSR: A Fast--Slow--Reflect Agentic Reasoning Framework for Context-Aware Time Series Forecastingcited by 0
- 2026MetaCaster: Meta-Harness-Optimized Agent for End-to-End Few-Shot Learning of Lightweight Time Series Forecasterscited by 0
- 2026A Human-in-the-Loop Autonomous Agent for Industry Time Series Forecastingcited by 0
- 2026A Human-in-the-Loop Autonomous Agent for Industry Time Series Forecasting31 Aug 2026
- 2026MetaCaster: Meta-Harness-Optimized Agent for End-to-End Few-Shot Learning of Lightweight Time Series Forecasters24 Aug 2026
- 2026CastFSR: A Fast--Slow--Reflect Agentic Reasoning Framework for Context-Aware Time Series Forecasting4 Aug 2026
- 2026ReasonCast: Towards Explainable Time Series Forecasting with Reasoning3 Aug 2026
- 2026TSQAgent: Rating Time Series Data Quality via Dedicated Agentic Reasoning2 Jun 2026
- 2026Nexus : An Agentic Framework for Time Series Forecasting14 May 2026
- 2026CastFlow: Learning Role-Specialized Agentic Workflows for Time Series Forecasting30 Apr 2026
- 2026AnomaMind: Agentic Time Series Anomaly Detection with Tool-Augmented Reasoning14 Feb 2026
- 2026Cast-R1: Learning Tool-Augmented Sequential Decision Policies for Time Series Forecasting14 Feb 2026
- 2026CoGenCast: A Coupled Autoregressive-Flow Generative Framework for Time Series Forecasting3 Feb 2026
- 2026Position: Beyond Model-Centric Prediction -- Agentic Time Series Forecasting2 Feb 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2024Reasoning and Tools for Human-Level Forecasting
- 2026KairosAgent: Agentic Time Series Forecasting with Fused Semantic Reasoning
- 2026LLM-based Agents for Forecasting and Prediction: Methods, Training, Evaluation, and Applications
- 2026ReasonCast: Agentic Demand Forecasting with Selective Semantic Reasoning
- 2025TimeSeriesScientist: A General-Purpose AI Agent for Time Series Analysis
- 2026TemporalBench: A Benchmark for Evaluating LLM-Based Agents on Contextual and Event-Informed Time Series Tasks
- 2026TFRBench: A Reasoning Benchmark for Evaluating Forecasting Systems
- 2026TimeSage-MT: A Multi-Turn Benchmark for Evaluating Agentic Time Series Reasoning