# AgentLTV: An Agent-Based Unified Search-and-Evolution Framework for Automated Lifetime Value Prediction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.21634 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.21634/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Web, search, and research agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 16 of its 56 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Feb 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Web, search, and research agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/web-search-and-research-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 16 of 16)

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- [Billion-user Customer Lifetime Value Prediction: An Industrial-scale Solution from Kuaishou](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.13358/) (2022)
- [Customer Lifetime Value in Video Games Using Deep Learning and Parametric Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.12799/) (2018)
- [Out of the Box Thinking: Improving Customer Lifetime Value Modelling via Expert Routing and Game Whale Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12729/) (2023)
- [A Systematic Survey on Large Language Models for Evolutionary Optimization: From Modeling to Solving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.08269/) (2025)
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## Abstract (arXiv)

Lifetime Value (LTV) prediction is critical in advertising, recommender systems, and e-commerce. In practice, LTV data patterns vary across decision scenarios. As a result, practitioners often build complex, scenario-specific pipelines and iterate over feature processing, objective design, and tuning. This process is expensive and hard to transfer. We propose AgentLTV, an agent-based unified search-and-evolution framework for automated LTV modeling. AgentLTV treats each candidate solution as an {executable pipeline program}. LLM-driven agents generate code, run and repair pipelines, and analyze execution feedback. Two decision agents coordinate a two-stage search. The Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) stage explores a broad space of modeling choices under a fixed budget, guided by the Polynomial Upper Confidence bounds for Trees criterion and a Pareto-aware multi-metric value function. The Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) stage refines the best MCTS program via island-based evolution with crossover, mutation, and migration. Experiments on a large-scale proprietary dataset and a public benchmark show that AgentLTV consistently discovers strong models across ranking and error metrics. Online bucket-level analysis further indicates improved ranking consistency and value calibration, especially for high-value and negative-LTV segments. We summarize practitioner-oriented takeaways: use MCTS for rapid adaptation to new data patterns, use EA for stable refinement, and validate deployment readiness with bucket-level ranking and calibration diagnostics. The proposed AgentLTV has been successfully deployed online.