personalized

Definition

Tailored per user rather than identical for everyone: the same query returns different results depending on that user's history and profile. It is defined against non-personalized baselines like global popularity ranking, which are what personalization has to beat to justify its cost. The known downside is feedback: a system trained on what a user already engaged with tends to narrow what it shows them, which is the filter-bubble critique.

Explainers using this term

• Recommenders and Embeddings — Same Math as RAG, Different GoalBPR: Bayesian Personalized Ranking from Implicit Feedback