arXiv AI

Large Language Models as Optimizers: A Survey of Direct vs. Tool-Augmented Approaches and Their Performance Frontiers

arXiv:2606. 15577v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly involved in complex mathematical optimization, even if the pragmatic user who triggers them is unaware of it.

arXiv AI
3d ago

Right Answers, Costly Models: The Efficiency Gap in LLM-based Optimization Modeling

The paper introduces OptTips, a knowledge base of 50 expert optimization modeling techniques, and OptDachshund, a multi‑agent framework that generates mathematical models and solver code from natural‑language problem descriptions. Using these tools, the authors create the EfficientOpt benchmark, comprising 561 expert‑reviewed tasks with paired reference implementations, to evaluate large language models (LLMs) on both correctness and computational efficiency. Their experiments with 11 LLMs show a consistent efficiency gap: even when LLMs produce correct solutions, the resulting programs often take longer to solve than expert‑crafted counterparts, highlighting the need to assess both accuracy and runtime performance in LLM‑based optimization modeling.

By Zhong Li, Xin Huang, Jinhui Wan, Xiangyi Wang, Shenkai Zhang, Ruiqi Chen, Wenyu Liu, Zaiwen Wen, Ziyan Luo
arXiv AI
Aug 5

IR2Solve: Structured Intermediate Representations for Cost-Efficient Optimization Autoformulation

arXiv:2608. 02641v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) can translate natural-language optimization problems into solver-ready formulations, but direct code generation is brittle: schema, indexing, and semantic errors can cause compilation failures, infeasible models, or incorrect objectives, while iterative repair, search, and multi-agent workflows increase inference cost.

By Penglin Zhu, Linhai Zhang, Jungang Xu, Xinchi Wei, Xiuqi Wu
arXiv AI
Jul 24

VeriSimpl: Robust Optimization Modeling from Natural Language using Simplification-based Verification

arXiv:2607. 20474v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Natural language interfaces can greatly benefit the accessibility and usability of optimization modeling, and recent advances in large language models (LLMs) show promise in automatically translating textual problem descriptions into executable solver formulations.

By Sumaya Abdul Rahman, Seckhen Ariel Andrade Cuellar, Ghani Raissov, Mohammad Raza
arXiv AI
Jun 2

FrontierOR: Benchmarking LLMs' Capacity for Efficient Algorithm Design in Large-Scale Optimization

arXiv:2605. 25246v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used for optimization modeling and solver-code generation, yet practical operations research and optimization problems often require a harder capability: designing scalable algorithms that exploit problem structure and outperform direct formulation-and-solve baselines.

By Minwei Kong, Chonghe Jiang, Ao Qu, Wenbin Ouyang, Zhaoming Zeng, Xiaotong Guo, Zhekai Li, Junyi Li, Yi Fan, Xinshou Zheng, Xi Jing, Yikai Zhang, Zhiwei Liang, Seonghoo Kim, Runqing Yang, Zijian Zhou, Sirui Li, Han Zheng, Wangyang Ying, Ou Zheng, Chonghuan Wang, Jinglong Zhao, Hanzhang Qin, Cathy Wu, Paul Pu Liang, Jinhua Zhao, Hai Wang
arXiv AI
Jul 24

Representation Robustness Under Executable Reasoning Constraints in Large Language Models for Mathematical Problem Solving

arXiv:2607. 20520v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly evaluated on mathematical problem solving, yet prior work often treats representationally equivalent formulations as interchangeable and conflates reasoning errors with interface failures.

By Sagnik Nath, Edith Aurora Graf, Liang Zhang, Diego Zapata-Rivera
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 10

$\Phi$-Bench: Can Large Language Models Engineer the Infrastructure That Powers Them?

arXiv:2609.10226v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in reasoning and code generation, raising the prospect that they could assist in...

By Leilei Ding, Shumin Wang, Yuting Huang, Fanqi Wan, Yinmin Zhang, Qi Han, Yiming Xu, Feiyuan Zhang, Xiaomeng Chu, Guoliang You, Wuyang Zhang, Daxin Jiang, Yanyong Zhang
arXiv AI
Aug 18

ReLoop: Structured Modeling and Behavioral Verification for Reliable LLM-Based Optimization

arXiv:2602. 15983v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) can translate natural language into optimization code, but silent failures pose a critical risk: code that executes and returns solver-feasible solutions may encode semantically incorrect formulations---a feasibility--correctness gap reaching 90 percentage points on compositional problems.

By Junbo Jacob Lian, Yujun Sun, Huiling Chen, Chaoyu Zhang, Hanzhang Qin, Chung-Piaw Teo
arXiv AI
Sep 4

Evolving Excellence: Automated Optimization of LLM-based Agents

The paper introduces ARTEMIS, a no-code evolutionary optimization platform that automatically tunes large language model (LLM) agents by jointly optimizing prompts, tool descriptions, and parameters using semantically-aware genetic operators. Starting from a benchmark script and natural language goals, ARTEMIS discovers configurable components, extracts performance signals from execution logs, and evolves configurations without architectural changes. Experiments on four agent systems show significant gains: a 13.6% increase in acceptance rate for the ALE Agent, a 10.1% performance boost for the Mini‑SWE Agent, a 36.9% token‑reduction for the CrewAI Agent, and a 22% accuracy improvement for the MathTales‑Teacher Agent using a smaller open‑source model.

By Paul Brookes, Vardan Voskanyan, Rafail Giavrimis, Matthew Truscott, Mina Ilieva, Chrystalla Pavlou, Alexandru Staicu, Manal Adham, Will Evers- Hood, Jingzhi Gong, Kejia Zhang, Matvey Fedoseev, Vishal Sharma, Roman Bauer, Zheng Wang, Hema Nair, Wei Jie, Tianhua Xu, Aurora Constantin, Leslie Kanthan, Michail Basios