# LLM synthetic data generation

Area: [Synthetic data and self-improvement for LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/synth/index.md). HTML: https://mlsanity.com/synth/llm-synthetic-data-generation/

## Key facts

- LLM synthetic data generation: 275 papers on arXiv since 2021 (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- 29 of its 275 mapped papers (11%) cite “On LLMs-Driven Synthetic Data Generation, Curation, and Evaluation: A Survey” (2024, arXiv 2406.15126).
- 22 of its 275 mapped papers (8%) cite “Best Practices and Lessons Learned on Synthetic Data” (2024, arXiv 2404.07503).
- 5 new papers 17 Sep–14 Oct.

## Most cited here

- [On LLMs-Driven Synthetic Data Generation, Curation, and Evaluation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15126/) (2024), cited by 29 papers here
- [Best Practices and Lessons Learned on Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07503/) (2024), cited by 22 papers here
- [Scaling Synthetic Data Creation with 1,000,000,000 Personas](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.20094/) (2024), cited by 18 papers here
- [Synthetic Data Generation with Large Language Models for Text Classification: Potential and Limitations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07849/) (2023), cited by 16 papers here
- [On the Diversity of Synthetic Data and its Impact on Training Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15226/) (2024), cited by 9 papers here
- [Better Synthetic Data by Retrieving and Transforming Existing Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.14361/) (2024), cited by 6 papers here
- [Evaluating Language Models as Synthetic Data Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03679/) (2024), cited by 6 papers here
- [Synthetic Data Generation Using Large Language Models: Advances in Text and Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14023/) (2025), cited by 6 papers here
- [Generative AI for Synthetic Data Generation: Methods, Challenges and the Future](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.04190/) (2024), cited by 5 papers here
- [Generating Faithful Synthetic Data with Large Language Models: A Case Study in Computational Social Science](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15041/) (2023), cited by 4 papers here

## New (17 Sep–14 Oct)

- [Coverage, Not Difficulty, Sets How Much Synthetic Data an Activation Probe Needs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.10594/) (2026-10-06)
- [Improving Synthetic Data Generation for Argument Mining via Adversarial Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.07699/) (2026-10-06)
- [Training-Aware Target Coverage for Synthetic Data Selection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00814/) (2026-09-30)
- [Synthetic Data Characterization via Training Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.39447/) (2026-09-30)
- [DataCanvas-EDU: An Agentic Framework for Instructor-Guided Synthetic Data Generation in Business Analytics Education](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.19617/) (2026-09-17)