mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Bi-Mem: Bidirectional Construction of Hierarchical Memory for Personalized LLMs via Inductive-Reflective Agents

arXiv 2601.06490 ↗First posted 10 Jan 2026cs.MAcited by 3

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent memory systems

Abstract (arXiv)

Constructing memory from users' long-term conversations overcomes LLMs' contextual limitations and enables personalized interactions. Recent studies focus on hierarchical memory to model users' multi-granular behavioral patterns via clustering and aggregating historical conversations. However, conversational noise and memory hallucinations can be amplified during clustering, causing locally aggregated memories to misalign with the user's global persona. To mitigate this issue, we propose Bi-Mem, an agentic framework ensuring hierarchical memory fidelity through bidirectional construction. Specifically, we deploy an inductive agent to form the hierarchical memory: it extracts factual information from raw conversations to form fact-level memory, aggregates them into thematic scenes (i.e., local scene-level memory) using graph clustering, and infers users' profiles as global persona-level memory. Simultaneously, a reflective agent is designed to calibrate local scene-level memories using global constraints derived from the persona-level memory, thereby enforcing global-local alignment. For coherent memory recall, we propose an associative retrieval mechanism: beyond initial hierarchical search, a spreading activation process allows facts to evoke contextual scenes, while scene-level matches retrieve salient supporting factual information. Empirical evaluations demonstrate that Bi-Mem achieves significant improvements in question answering performance on long-term personalized conversational tasks.

Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Agent memory systems, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 17 of its 30 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 10 Jan 2026.

Builds on

17 of 30 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Memory in the Age of AI Agents15 Dec
  2. 2025General Agentic Memory Via Deep Research23 Nov
  3. 2025CAM: A Constructivist View of Agentic Memory for LLM-Based Reading Comprehension7 Oct
  4. 2025A-MEM: Agentic Memory for LLM Agents17 Feb
  5. 2024A Survey on the Memory Mechanism of Large Language Model based Agents21 Apr
  6. 2024Evaluating Very Long-Term Conversational Memory of LLM Agents27 Feb

Other references · 11

  1. 2020Retrieval-Augmented Generation for Knowledge-Intensive NLP Taskscited by 9,297
  2. 2023MemGPT: Towards LLMs as Operating Systemscited by 1,389
  3. 2021Beyond Goldfish Memory: Long-Term Open-Domain Conversationcited by 267
  4. 2025LightMem: Lightweight and Efficient Memory-Augmented Generationcited by 180
  5. 2025On Memory Construction and Retrieval for Personalized Conversational Agentscited by 105
  6. 2024From Isolated Conversations to Hierarchical Schemas: Dynamic Tree Memory Representation for LLMscited by 79
  7. 2024Personalized Pieces: Efficient Personalized Large Language Models through Collaborative Effortscited by 74
  8. 2023Conversation Chronicles: Towards Diverse Temporal and Relational Dynamics in Multi-Session Conversationscited by 47
  9. 2024FunnelRAG: A Coarse-to-Fine Progressive Retrieval Paradigm for RAGcited by 18
  10. 2024Leveraging Memory Retrieval to Enhance LLM-based Generative Recommendationcited by 6
  11. 2025From Personal to Collective: On the Role of Local and Global Memory in LLM Personalizationcited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 3.

3 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026TiMem: Temporal-Hierarchical Memory Consolidation for Long-Horizon Conversational Agents
  2. 2026From Passive Retrieval to Active Memory Navigation: Learning to Use Memory as a Structured Action Space
  3. 2026Beyond Memory Construction: Rethinking Memory Access for LLM-based Conversational Agents
  4. 2026From Recall to Forgetting: Benchmarking Long-Term Memory for Personalized Agents
  5. 2026Beyond Dialogue Time: Temporal Semantic Memory for Personalized LLM Agents
  6. 2026MemMachine: A Ground-Truth-Preserving Memory System for Personalized AI Agents
  7. 2025In Prospect and Retrospect: Reflective Memory Management for Long-term Personalized Dialogue Agents
  8. 2026Towards Autonomous Memory Agents