BONSAI: Evolvability-Guided Tree Search over Skills

Name: BONSAI: Evolvability-Guided Tree Search over Skills
Uploaded: 2026-08-10T10:40:59.857272+00:00
Duration: 1269 s
Description: IBM Research's BONSAI optimizes text skills for frozen AI models via evolvability-guided tree search. It measures a skill's neighborhood fitness, not just its score, to avoid overfit spikes. On three benchmarks, it improves held-out accuracy by 23.13 points over skill-free agents and beats GEPA and SkillOpt by ~4 points.

IBM Research's BONSAI optimizes text skills for frozen AI models via evolvability-guided tree search. It measures a skill's neighborhood fitness, not just its score, to avoid overfit spikes. On three benchmarks, it improves held-out accuracy by 23.13 points over skill-free agents and beats GEPA and SkillOpt by ~4 points.

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