Diffusion Models In Recommendation Systems

A survey of diffusion models in recommendation systems.

Detailed information can be found in our survey paper.

@article{wei2025diffusion,
  title={Diffusion Models in Recommendation Systems: A Survey},
  author={Wei, Ting-Ruen and Fang, Yi},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.10548},
  year={2025}
}

Table of Contents

• Background in Diffusion Models
• Papers for Diffusion Models in Recsys
  • Collaborative Filtering
  • Sequential Recommendation
  • Multi-domain Recommendation
  • Responsible Recommendation

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Background in Diffusion Models

• Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics
• Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution
• Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models
• Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations
• Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models
• Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis
• Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance
• High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models
• Progressive Distillation for Fast Sampling of Diffusion Models

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Papers for Diffusion Models in Recsys

Collaborative Filtering

• Implicit Feedback

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Blurring-sharpening process models for collaborative filtering	SIGIR 2023		Link
Incorporating Classifier-Free Guidance in Diffusion Model-Based Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Collaborative Filtering Based on Diffusion Models: Unveiling the Potential of High-Order Connectivity	SIGIR 2024		Link
Recommendation via collaborative diffusion generative model	KSEM 2022		Link
Denoising diffusion recommender model	SIGIR 2024		Link
A Directional Diffusion Graph Transformer for Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Diffusion recommender model	SIGIR 2023		Link
Recfusion: A binomial diffusion process for 1d data for recommendation	Arxiv 2023		Link
SCONE: A Novel Stochastic Sampling to Generate Contrastive Views and Hard Negative Samples for Recommendation	WSDM 2025		Link
Effects of Using Synthetic Data on Deep Recommender Models' Performance	Arxiv 2024		Link

• Explicit Rating

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
DGRM: Diffusion-GAN recommendation model to alleviate the mode collapse problem in sparse environments	Pattern Recognition 2024		Link
EDGE-Rec: Efficient and Data-Guided Edge Diffusion For Recommender Systems Graphs	Arxiv 2024		Link

• Item Graph

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
DICES: Diffusion-Based Contrastive Learning with Knowledge Graphs for Recommendation	KSEM 2024		Link
Diffkg: Knowledge graph diffusion model for recommendation	WSDM 2024		Link
G-Diff: A Graph-Based Decoding Network for Diffusion Recommender Model	TNNLS 2024		Link
Graph Signal Diffusion Model for Collaborative Filtering	SIGIR 2024		Link

• User Graph

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Diffusion social augmentation for social recommendation	Supercomputing 2025		Link
Recdiff: diffusion model for social recommendation	CIKM 2024		Link

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Sequential Recommendation

• Point-of-interest

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Diffusion-based cloud-edge-device collaborative learning for next POI recommendations	KDD 2024		Link
Diff-DGMN: A Diffusion-Based Dual Graph Multi-Attention Network for POI Recommendation	IoT 2024		Link
A diffusion model for poi recommendation	TOIS 2023		Link
DSDRec: Next POI recommendation using deep semantic extraction and diffusion model	Info Sci 2024		Link

• Sequence as Diffusion Target and Guidance

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Diffusion-based Contrastive Learning for Sequential Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Dual Conditional Diffusion Models for Sequential Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Semantic-Aware Diffusion Model for Sequential Recommendation	Open Review 2024		Link

• Sequence as Diffusion Target

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Discrete conditional diffusion for reranking in recommendation	WWW 2024		Link
Breaking Determinism: Fuzzy Modeling of Sequential Recommendation Using Discrete State Space Diffusion Model	NeurIPS 2024		Link
Federated Recommender System Based on Diffusion Augmentation and Guided Denoising	TOIS 2024		Link
A Diffusion Data Enhancement Retentive Model for Sequential Recommendation	CISAT 2024		Link
Diff4rec: Sequential recommendation with curriculum-scheduled diffusion augmentation	MM 2023		Link
Diffusion augmentation for sequential recommendation	CIKM 2023		Link
Multi-Interest Network with Simple Diffusion for Multi-Behavior Sequential Recommendation	SDM 2024		Link
Plug-in diffusion model for sequential recommendation	AAAI 2024		Link
SeeDRec: Sememe-based Diffusion for Sequential Recommendation	IJCAI 2024		Link
Bridging User Dynamics: Transforming Sequential Recommendations with Schr{"o}dinger Bridge and Diffusion Models	CIKM 2024		Link

• Sequence as Diffusion Guidance

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Conditional denoising diffusion for sequential recommendation	PAKDD 2024		Link
Sequential recommendation with diffusion models	Arxiv 2023		Link
Diffusion Recommendation with Implicit Sequence Influence	WWW 2024		Link
Diffurec: A diffusion model for sequential recommendation	TOIS 2023		Link
DimeRec: A Unified Framework for Enhanced Sequential Recommendation via Generative Diffusion Models	Arxiv 2024		Link
Generate what you prefer: Reshaping sequential recommendation via guided diffusion	NeurIPS 2024		Link
EDiffuRec: An Enhanced Diffusion Model for Sequential Recommendation	Mathematics 2024		Link
Generate and Instantiate What You Prefer: Text-Guided Diffusion for Sequential Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Implicit local--global feature extraction for diffusion sequence recommendation	EAAI 2025		Link
LeadRec: Towards Personalized Sequential Recommendation via Guided Diffusion	ICIC 2024		Link
Preference Diffusion for Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link

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Multi-domain Recommendation

• Image Generation

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
AdBooster: Personalized Ad Creative Generation using Stable Diffusion Outpainting	Arxiv 2023		Link
A New Creative Generation Pipeline for Click-Through Rate with Stable Diffusion Model	WWW 2024		Link
Dynamic Product Image Generation and Recommendation at Scale for Personalized E-commerce	Recsys 2024		Link
Diffusion Models for Generative Outfit Recommendation	SIGIR 2024		Link
GEMRec: Towards Generative Model Recommendation	WSDM 2024		Link

• Text-to-recommendation

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Diffusion Model for Slate Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link

• Multi-modal Attributes

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
DiffMM: Multi-Modal Diffusion Model for Recommendation	MM 2024		Link
LD4MRec: Simplifying and Powering Diffusion Model for Multimedia Recommendation	Arxiv 2023		Link
Multimodal Conditioned Diffusion Model for Recommendation	WWW 2024		Link
Diffusion Review-Based Recommendation	KSEM 2024		Link

• Cross-domain

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Diffusion Cross-domain Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Diff-MSR: A Diffusion Model Enhanced Paradigm for Cold-Start Multi-Scenario Recommendation	WSDM 2024		Link

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Responsible Recommendation

• Fairness

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Balancing User Preferences by Social Networks: A Condition-Guided Social Recommendation Model for Mitigating Popularity Bias	Arxiv 2024		Link
Controlling Diversity at Inference: Guiding Diffusion Recommender Models with Targeted Category Preferences	Arxiv 2024		Link
Guided Diffusion-based Counterfactual Augmentation for Robust Session-based Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
DifFaiRec: Generative Fair Recommender with Conditional Diffusion Model	Arxiv 2024		Link
How Fair is Your Diffusion Recommender Model?	Arxiv 2024		Link

• Accountability

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Manipulating Visually Aware Federated Recommender Systems and Its Countermeasures	TOIS 2023		Link
Adversarial Item Promotion on Visually-Aware Recommender Systems by Guided Diffusion	TOIS 2024		Link
Generating Model Parameters for Controlling: Parameter Diffusion for Controllable Multi-Task Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link
Multi-Resolution Diffusion for Privacy-Sensitive Recommender Systems	Access 2024		Link
ToDA: Target-oriented Diffusion Attacker against Recommendation System	Arxiv 2024		Link

• Transparency

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
An Explainable Recommendation Method based on Diffusion Model	BigDIA 2023		Link

• Out-of-distribution

Title	Venue	Main Image	Paper
Graph Representation Learning via Causal Diffusion for Out-of-Distribution Recommendation	Arxiv 2024		Link