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Talent Scout

J

Jinming Nian

Santa Clara University

F

Fangchen Li

Independent Researcher

D

Dae Hoon Park

Walmart Global Tech

Y

Yi Fang

Santa Clara University

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References (17)

[1]
ShinkaEvolve: Towards Open-Ended And Sample-Efficient Program Evolution
2025R. Lange, Yuki Imajuku et al.
[2]
Overview of the TREC 2022 Deep Learning Track
2025Nick Craswell, Bhaskar Mitra et al.
[3]
BRIGHT: A Realistic and Challenging Benchmark for Reasoning-Intensive Retrieval
2024Hongjin Su, Howard Yen et al.
[4]
Pyserini: A Python Toolkit for Reproducible Information Retrieval Research with Sparse and Dense Representations
2021Jimmy J. Lin, Xueguang Ma et al.
[5]
BEIR: A Heterogenous Benchmark for Zero-shot Evaluation of Information Retrieval Models
2021Nandan Thakur, Nils Reimers et al.
[6]
Overview of the TREC 2020 Deep Learning Track
2021Nick Craswell, Bhaskar Mitra et al.
[7]
Adaptive term frequency normalization for BM25
2011Yuanhua Lv, ChengXiang Zhai
[8]
Lower-bounding term frequency normalization
2011Yuanhua Lv, ChengXiang Zhai
[9]
When documents are very long, BM25 fails!
2011Yuanhua Lv, ChengXiang Zhai
[10]
Information-based models for ad hoc IR
2010S. Clinchant, Éric Gaussier
[11]
The Probabilistic Relevance Framework: BM25 and Beyond
2009S. Robertson, H. Zaragoza
[12]
Learning to rank for information retrieval
2009Tie-Yan Liu
[13]
Optimisation methods for ranking functions with multiple parameters
2006Michael J. Taylor, H. Zaragoza et al.
[14]
Evolving local and global weighting schemes in information retrieval
2006Ronan Cummins, C. O'Riordan
[15]
A generic ranking function discovery framework by genetic programming for information retrieval
2004Weiguo Fan, Michael D. Gordon et al.
[16]
A study of smoothing methods for language models applied to information retrieval
2004Chengxiang Zhai, J. Lafferty
[17]
A Language Modeling Approach to Information Retrieval
1998J. Ponte, W. Bruce Croft

Founder's Pitch

"RankEvolve automates the discovery of novel retrieval algorithms using LLM-driven evolutionary search."

Automated Algorithm DiscoveryScore: 7View PDF ↗

Commercial Viability Breakdown

0-10 scale

High Potential

2/4 signals

5

Quick Build

4/4 signals

10

Series A Potential

2/4 signals

5

Sources used for this analysis

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Analysis model: GPT-4o · Last scored: 2/18/2026

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Why It Matters

This research automates the discovery of retrieval algorithms through an AI-driven evolutionary process, eliminating the dependence on human intuition and manual tuning.

Product Angle

Turn RankEvolve into a SaaS platform for information retrieval systems to optimize and evolve their search algorithms automatically.

Disruption

RankEvolve replaces the traditional model of manual algorithm crafting and incremental parameter tuning with a fully automated, AI-driven approach.

Product Opportunity

The search industry is vast, with every search engine requiring effective retrieval mechanisms. Organizations like Google, Bing, and smaller enterprise search tools could benefit from automated algorithm innovation.

Use Case Idea

Develop a software tool or API service for search engine providers to automatically discover new algorithm variants that improve search result accuracy.

Science

RankEvolve evolves retrieval algorithms using a large language model that guides the mutation and selection process. Starting from known algorithms like BM25, it creates new, more effective algorithms through iterative changes that improve retrieval performance across multiple datasets.

Method & Eval

The effectiveness of RankEvolve was validated against strong existing algorithms over 28 datasets (including BEIR and BRIGHT), showing significant improvements in benchmark scores like nDCG and Recall.

Caveats

Reliance on datasets for training may limit generalization to non-supported datasets; random evolution steps might result in suboptimal local minima without human oversight.

Author Intelligence

Jinming Nian

Santa Clara University
jnian@scu.edu

Fangchen Li

Independent Researcher
fangchen.li@outlook.com

Dae Hoon Park

Walmart Global Tech
dae.hoon.park@walmart.com

Yi Fang

Santa Clara University
yfang@scu.edu