2024/07/01 by Phillip Schneider, Schneider, Phillip, Wessel Poelman +5 · 2 citations
Computer Science · #Advanced Text Analysis Techniques #Computation and Language (cs.CL) #FOS: Computer and information sciences
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2407.00997
openalex publication_date 2024/07/01 · openalex created_date 2024/07/06 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Conversational search systems enable information retrieval via natural language interactions, with the goal of maximizing users' information gain over multiple dialogue turns. The increasing prevalence of conversational interfaces adopting this search paradigm challenges traditional information retrieval approaches, stressing the importance of better understanding the engineering process of developing these systems. We undertook a systematic literature review to investigate the links between theoretical studies and technical implementations of conversational search systems. Our review identifies real-world application scenarios, system architectures, and functional components. We consolidate our results by presenting a layered architecture framework and explaining the core functions of conversational search systems. Furthermore, we reflect on our findings in light of the rapid progress in large language models, discussing their capabilities, limitations, and directions for future research.