Exploration-Exploitation papers, 2023–2026

Key findings

• Exploration-Exploitation went from 47 papers in 2023 to 71 in 2026, roughly 1.5x in three years.
• NeurIPS publishes the most Exploration-Exploitation work: 93 papers from 2023 to 2026, 40% of the four-venue total.
• The fastest-growing overlap is with Reasoning Models: papers tagged with both rose from 1 in 2023 to 10 in 2026.
• Among the 5 topics under Recommenders and Ads, it ranks #4 by 2026 paper count; the fastest grower in the group, Click-Through Prediction, is up 2.6x versus 1.5x here.

Representative papers

Spread across years and venues so every edition shows up

• NeurIPS 2026Decentralized Q-Learning in Markov Potential Games
• ICML 2026Bandit Social Leaning Dynamics with Exploration Episodes
• ICLR 2026Laplacian Kernelized Bandit
• CVPR 2026Underground Plant Exploration Non-Destructive 3D Root Assessment with GPR Based
• NeurIPS 2025DUET: Dual-Perspective Pseudo Labeling and Uncertainty-aware Exploration & Exploitation Training for Source-Free Domain Adaptation
• ICML 2025Clustering Items through Bandit Feedback: Finding the Right Feature out of Many
• ICLR 2025B-STaR: Monitoring and Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Self-Taught Reasoners
• CVPR 2025Dynamic Pseudo Labeling via Gradient Cutting for High-Low Entropy Exploration
• NeurIPS 2024Exploration, Exploitation, and Engagement in Multi-Armed Bandits with Abandonment
• ICML 2024A Contextual Combinatorial Bandit Approach to Negotiation
• ICLR 2024Dropout-Based Rashomon Set Exploration for Efficient Predictive Multiplicity Estimation
• CVPR 2024Instance-aware Exploration-Verification-Exploitation for Instance ImageGoal Navigation
• NeurIPS 2023Adaptive Algorithms for Relaxed Pareto Set Identification
• ICML 2023Curiosity in Hindsight: Intrinsic Exploration in Stochastic Environments
• ICLR 2023Combinatorial Pure Exploration of Causal Bandits
• CVPR 2023Exact-NeRF: An Exploration of a Precise Volumetric Parameterization for Neural Radiance Fields
• NeurIPS 2026Hit Expansion via Localized Exploration of Synthesizable Chemical Space
• ICML 2026Exploration-free Algorithms for Multi-group Mean Estimation
• ICLR 2026DIVERSE: Disagreement-Inducing Vector Evolution for Rashomon Set Exploration
• CVPR 2026From Exploration to Exploitation A Two-Stage Entropy RLVR Approach for

All Exploration-Exploitation papers

235 papers, page 5 of 5

201. ICML 2023Banker Online Mirror Descent: A Universal Approach for Delayed Online Bandit Learning
202. ICML 2023Curiosity in Hindsight: Intrinsic Exploration in Stochastic Environments
203. ICML 2023Deep Laplacian-based Options for Temporally-Extended Exploration
204. ICML 2023Fast Rates for Maximum Entropy Exploration
205. ICML 2023FLEX: an Adaptive Exploration Algorithm for Nonlinear Systems
206. ICML 2023Incentivizing Exploration with Linear Contexts and Combinatorial Actions
207. ICML 2023Layered State Discovery for Incremental Autonomous Exploration
208. ICML 2023LESSON: Learning to Integrate Exploration Strategies for Reinforcement Learning via an Option Framework
209. ICML 2023Leveraging Demonstrations to Improve Online Learning: Quality Matters
210. ICML 2023Low-Switching Policy Gradient with Exploration via Online Sensitivity Sampling
211. ICML 2023Moderately Distributional Exploration for Domain Generalization
212. ICML 2023Multiplier Bootstrap-based Exploration
213. ICML 2023Near-optimal Conservative Exploration in Reinforcement Learning under Episode-wise Constraints
214. ICML 2023On the convergence of the MLE as an estimator of the learning rate in the Exp3 algorithm
215. ICML 2023Online Restless Bandits with Unobserved States
216. ICML 2023Optimal Horizon-Free Reward-Free Exploration for Linear Mixture MDPs
217. ICML 2023Stochastic Gradient Succeeds for Bandits
218. NeurIPS 2023Accelerating Exploration with Unlabeled Prior Data
219. NeurIPS 2023Adaptive Algorithms for Relaxed Pareto Set Identification
220. NeurIPS 2023An Exploration-by-Optimization Approach to Best of Both Worlds in Linear Bandits
221. NeurIPS 2023Anytime Model Selection in Linear Bandits
222. NeurIPS 2023Asymptotically Optimal Quantile Pure Exploration for Infinite-Armed Bandits
223. NeurIPS 2023Cascading Contextual Assortment Bandits
224. NeurIPS 2023Cross-Scale MAE: A Tale of Multiscale Exploitation in Remote Sensing
225. NeurIPS 2023Double Auctions with Two-sided Bandit Feedback
226. NeurIPS 2023ELDEN: Exploration via Local Dependencies
227. NeurIPS 2023High-dimensional Contextual Bandit Problem without Sparsity
228. NeurIPS 2023Interactive Multi-fidelity Learning for Cost-effective Adaptation of Language Model with Sparse Human Supervision
229. NeurIPS 2023Latent exploration for Reinforcement Learning
230. NeurIPS 2023Maximum Average Randomly Sampled: A Scale Free and Non-parametric Algorithm for Stochastic Bandits
231. NeurIPS 2023Nearest Neighbour with Bandit Feedback
232. NeurIPS 2023Non-Stationary Bandits with Auto-Regressive Temporal Dependency
233. NeurIPS 2023On the Exploration of Local Significant Differences For Two-Sample Test
234. NeurIPS 2023Optimal Rates for Bandit Nonstochastic Control
235. NeurIPS 2023Successor-Predecessor Intrinsic Exploration

FAQ

How many Exploration-Exploitation papers were published at NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML and CVPR from 2023 to 2026?

235 in total: 47 in 2023, 63 in 2024, 54 in 2025, 71 in 2026.

How many Exploration-Exploitation papers are at NeurIPS 2026?

NeurIPS 2026 has 25 Exploration-Exploitation papers, versus 20 the year before.

How many Exploration-Exploitation papers are at ICLR 2026?

ICLR 2026 has 23 Exploration-Exploitation papers, versus 10 the year before.

How many Exploration-Exploitation papers are at ICML 2026?

ICML 2026 has 19 Exploration-Exploitation papers, versus 21 the year before.

How many Exploration-Exploitation papers are at CVPR 2026?

CVPR 2026 has 4 Exploration-Exploitation papers, versus 3 the year before.

Which conference publishes the most Exploration-Exploitation papers?

NeurIPS, with 93 papers from 2023 to 2026.