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arXiv AI By Zhivar Sourati, Marianne Menglin Liu, Zheng Wang, Rongguang Wang, Sai Ashish Somayajula, Tao Sheng, Kyu J. Han, Sujith Ravi, Dan Roth

Same Context, Different Agents: A Behavioral Study of Semantic Layers, Orchestration and Compaction in Data Agents

Read the original on arXiv AI →

The study examines how three context‑engineering techniques—semantic layers, orchestration, and compaction—affect data agents that answer questions over heterogeneous data. Using seven large language models on 1,514 long‑horizon tasks, the authors identify three agent behavior groups (investigators, premature answerers, early stoppers) and show that each technique benefits only the group it aligns with, while sometimes harming others. Combining the techniques yields smaller net gains than the sum of individual effects, leading to guidance on selecting techniques based on agent behavior, task demands, and accuracy‑cost trade‑offs.

Machine-generated by The Flow from the publisher's headline and feed description — not written or checked by a human. The full article lives at arXiv AI.

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