LongRetriever: Towards Ultra-Long Sequence based Candidate Retrieval for Recommendation

Qin Ren, Zheng Chai, Xijun Xiao, Yuchao Zheng, Di Wu

Abstract: Precisely modeling user ultra-long sequences is critical for industrial recommender systems. Current approaches predominantly focus on leveraging ultra-long sequences in the ranking stage, whereas research for the candidate retrieval stage remains under-explored. This paper presents LongRetriever, a practical framework for incorporating ultra-long sequences into the retrieval stage of recommenders. Specifically, we propose in-context training and multi-context retrieval, which enable candidate-specific interaction between user sequence and candidate item, and ensure training-serving consistency under the search-based paradigm. Extensive online A/B testing conducted on a large-scale e-commerce platform demonstrates statistically significant improvements, confirming the framework's effectiveness. Currently, LongRetriever has been fully deployed in the platform, impacting billions of users.