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

48 papers, page 1 of 1

1. ICLR 2026Beyond Noisy-TVs: Noise-Robust Exploration Via Learning Progress Monitoring
2. ICLR 2026Contextual Similarity Distillation: Ensemble Uncertainties with a Single Model
3. ICLR 2026Controllable Exploration in Hybrid-Policy RLVR for Multi-Modal Reasoning
4. ICLR 2026Demystifying Emergent Exploration in Goal-Conditioned RL
5. ICLR 2026Discovering Diverse Behaviors via Temporal Contrastive Learning
6. ICLR 2026DIVERSE: Disagreement-Inducing Vector Evolution for Rashomon Set Exploration
7. ICLR 2026EEPO: Exploration-Enhanced Policy Optimization via Sample-Then-Forget
8. ICLR 2026Exploration vs Exploitation: Rethinking RLVR through Clipping, Entropy, and Spurious Reward
9. ICLR 2026Flow Expansion via Verifier-Constrained Noised State Space Exploration
10. ICLR 2026In-Context Learning for Pure Exploration
11. ICLR 2026Instance-Dependent Fixed-Budget Pure Exploration in Reinforcement Learning
12. ICLR 2026Is Pure Exploitation Sufficient in Exogenous MDPs with Linear Function Approximation?
13. ICLR 2026Laplacian Kernelized Bandit
14. ICLR 2026Learn the Ropes, Then Trust the Wins: Self-imitation with Progressive Exploration for Agentic Reinforcement Learning
15. ICLR 2026Multi-Armed Bandits with Minimum Aggregated Revenue Constraints
16. ICLR 2026Next-ToBE: Probabilistic Next Token-Bag Exploitation for Activating Anticipatory Capacity in LLMs
17. ICLR 2026Non-Asymptotic Analysis of (Sticky) Track-and-Stop
18. ICLR 2026Risk-Sensitive Reinforcement Learning for Alleviating Exploration Dilemmas in Large Language Models
19. ICLR 2026Sample-efficient and Scalable Exploration in Continuous-Time RL
20. ICLR 2026Strategic Scaling of Test-Time Compute: A Bandit Learning Approach
21. ICLR 2026Token Hidden Reward: Steering Exploration-Exploitation in Group Relative Deep Reinforcement Learning
22. ICLR 2026Universal Value-Function Uncertainties
23. ICLR 2026When Greedy Wins: Emergent Exploitation Bias in Meta-Bandit LLM Training
24. ICLR 2025B-STaR: Monitoring and Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Self-Taught Reasoners
25. ICLR 2025Bandit Learning in Matching Markets with Indifference
26. ICLR 2025Beyond-Expert Performance with Limited Demonstrations: Efficient Imitation Learning with Double Exploration
27. ICLR 2025Brain Bandit: A Biologically Grounded Neural Network for Efficient Control of Exploration
28. ICLR 2025Breaking the $\log(1/\Delta_2)$ Barrier: Better Batched Best Arm Identification with Adaptive Grids
29. ICLR 2025Demystifying Online Clustering of Bandits: Enhanced Exploration Under Stochastic and Smoothed Adversarial Contexts
30. ICLR 2025From Exploration to Mastery: Enabling LLMs to Master Tools via Self-Driven Interactions
31. ICLR 2025Highly Efficient Self-Adaptive Reward Shaping for Reinforcement Learning
32. ICLR 2025kNN Attention Demystified: A Theoretical Exploration for Scalable Transformers
33. ICLR 2025Online Preference Alignment for Language Models via Count-based Exploration
34. ICLR 2024Dropout-Based Rashomon Set Exploration for Efficient Predictive Multiplicity Estimation
35. ICLR 2024Improving Intrinsic Exploration by Creating Stationary Objectives
36. ICLR 2024In-context Exploration-Exploitation for Reinforcement Learning
37. ICLR 2024Neural Active Learning Beyond Bandits
38. ICLR 2024The Curse of Diversity in Ensemble-Based Exploration
39. ICLR 2024Unlocking the Power of Representations in Long-term Novelty-based Exploration
40. ICLR 2023Combinatorial Pure Exploration of Causal Bandits
41. ICLR 2023Guiding Safe Exploration with Weakest Preconditions
42. ICLR 2023Learning Achievement Structure for Structured Exploration in Domains with Sparse Reward
43. ICLR 2023Optimistic Exploration with Learned Features Provably Solves Markov Decision Processes with Neural Dynamics
44. ICLR 2023Pink Noise Is All You Need: Colored Noise Exploration in Deep Reinforcement Learning
45. ICLR 2023Replicable Bandits
46. ICLR 2023Revisiting Intrinsic Reward for Exploration in Procedurally Generated Environments
47. ICLR 2023Safe Exploration Incurs Nearly No Additional Sample Complexity for Reward-Free RL
48. ICLR 2023Which Layer is Learning Faster? A Systematic Exploration of Layer-wise Convergence Rate for Deep Neural Networks

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.