40244@AAAI

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#1 DialogXpert: Driving Intelligent and Emotion-Aware Conversations Through Online Value-Based Reinforcement Learning with LLM Priors [PDF] [Copy] [Kimi] [REL]

Authors: Tazeek Bin Abdur Rakib, Ambuj Mehrish, Lay-Ki Soon, Wern Han Lim, Soujanya Poria

Large-language-model (LLM) agents excel at reactive dialogue but struggle with proactive, goal-driven interactions due to myopic decoding and costly planning. We introduce DialogXpert, which leverages a frozen LLM to propose a small, high-quality set of candidate actions per turn and employs a compact Q-network over fixed BERT embeddings trained via temporal-difference learning to select optimal moves within this reduced space. By tracking the user's emotions DialogXpert tailors each decision to advance the task while nurturing a genuine, empathetic connection. Across negotiation, emotional support, and tutoring benchmarks, DialogXpert drives conversations to under 3 turns with success rates exceeding 94% and, with a larger LLM prior, pushes success above 97% while markedly improving negotiation outcomes. This framework delivers real-time, strategic, and emotionally intelligent dialogue planning at scale.

Subject: AAAI.2026 - Natural Language Processing