Research map / Learning theory and algorithms / Submodular and game algorithms
Streaming submodular algorithms
Maximize submodular objectives on data streams with small memory and robust guarantees.
73 accepted papers at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI (2016–2026) · an approach in Submodular and game algorithms, keyword cluster “submodular maximization · submodular functions · monotone”
State History Tried Checklist Preprints Who Export
Where it stands
Not enough benchmark data Fewer than four papers report the same benchmark, so there is no record to follow.
8 papers in 2023–24 and 9 in 2025–26 (at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI); its share of the topic held steady, from 3.9% to 3.7%.
How this is decided
A benchmark is tracked when at least four papers of this approach report their own method on the same dataset and metric in at least two different years. Its record is the best number reported up to 2024 compared with the best reported in 2025–26: still improving means at least 1% better, flat means at most 0.2% better with at least two papers from 2025–26 trying. Numbers on a different scale from the rest (a fraction among percentages) and far outliers are left out. Results come from different papers with different setups, so they are signals, not head-to-head comparisons. The share of papers is counted at ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, CVPR and AAAI.
How it got here
Most cited paper of each year
- 2016 · Causal meets Submodular: Subset Selection with Directed Information (NeurIPS 2016 · 45 citations)
- 2017 · Online Summarization via Submodular and Convex Optimization (CVPR 2017 · 55 citations)
- 2018 · Creating Capsule Wardrobes From Fashion Images (CVPR 2018 · 142 citations)
- 2019 · Submodular Streaming in All Its Glory: Tight Approximation, Minimum Memory and Low Adaptive Complexity (ICML 2019 · 48 citations)
- 2020 · Subset Selection by Pareto Optimization with Recombination (AAAI 2020 · 32 citations)
- 2021 · Learning Interpretable Decision Rule Sets: A Submodular Optimization Approach (NeurIPS 2021 · 10 citations)
- 2022 · Optimal Sampling Gaps for Adaptive Submodular Maximization (AAAI 2022 · 6 citations)
- 2023 · Constrained Submodular Optimization for Vaccine Design (AAAI 2023 · 3 citations)
- 2024 · Learning-Augmented Dynamic Submodular Maximization (NeurIPS 2024 · 1 citation)
- 2025 · Online and Streaming Algorithms for Constrained k-Submodular Maximization (AAAI 2025 · 1 citation)
- 2026 · Non-Linear Pricing Restores Tractability for a Data Seller (NeurIPS 2026 · 0 citations)
Earliest papers here
- Causal meets Submodular: Subset Selection with Directed Information (NeurIPS 2016 · 45 citations)
- Unsupervised Feature Selection by Heuristic Search with Provable Bounds on Suboptimality (AAAI 2016 · 45 citations)
- Noisy Submodular Maximization via Adaptive Sampling with Applications to Crowdsourced Image Collection Summarization (AAAI 2016 · 45 citations)
What has been tried
64 papers here report 474 measured changes (a component added, removed or swapped, compared with a baseline): helped 63%, no clear effect 12%, hurt 18%, mixed 6%. Papers mostly publish changes that helped, so "helped" is over-represented.
Ablations in recent papers
| What was changed | Measured on | Result | Effect | Paper |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| reduce each ca to 1/4 of the theoretical choice | iPinYou ad allocation, imbalanced budgets · function value | 7499.13 ± 68.22 -> 10236.05 ± 220.22 | Helped | Online and Streaming Algorithms for Constrained k-Submodular Maximization (AAAI 2025 · 1 citation) |
| Increase Storm++'s δ from 3 to 30 | Amazon · expected coverage | 130 to 120 | Hurt | Streaming Stochastic Submodular Maximization with On-Demand User Requests (NeurIPS 2025 · 0 citations) |
| Remove target feedback | Imagenet100, size-100 · FL Eval | 0.93 -> 0.92 | No clear effect | Deep Submodular Peripteral Networks (NeurIPS 2024 · 0 citations) |
What reviewers will expect
Datasets and baselines named in the 9 papers of this approach from 2025–2026 that have a full-text summary. Leaving out the common ones is a frequent review question.
Baselines
- Greedy+ · 2 of 9 papers
Recent preprints
Loading recent arXiv preprints…
Who publishes on it
Institutions on the most papers of this approach since 2023 (of 17 papers; from OpenAlex and the papers' affiliations).
- Microsoft · 3 papers
- Boston University · 2 papers
- Google · 2 papers
Use it
Download BibTeX of 31 key papersOpen the topic in the interactive map
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Related approaches
Same keyword cluster
- Monotone submodular maximization (116 papers)
- Submodular influence maximization (33 papers)
Elsewhere in the topic
- Fair division of indivisible goods (130 papers)
- Committee voting rules (120 papers)
- Matching markets and welfare (119 papers)
- Opponent modeling and subgame solving (116 papers)
- Zero-sum game learning dynamics (107 papers)
- Learned auction design (105 papers)
- Correlated equilibria in sequential games (86 papers)
- Equilibrium solvers for adversarial games (25 papers)
Benchmark numbers, ablations and baseline numbers are extracted by AI from each paper's full text and can be wrong; the paper is the authority. Data: results index of 2026-11-02, citation counts from OpenAlex (2026-10-09).