Decoupled Planning and Execution: A Hierarchical Reasoning Framework for Deep Search
Jiajie Jin, Xiaoxi Li, Guanting Dong, Yuyao Zhang, Yutao Zhu, Yang Zhao, Hongjin Qian, Zhicheng Dou
2025-07-04
Summary
This paper talks about a new hierarchical reasoning framework called Decoupled Planning and Execution that separates the big-picture planning from the detailed actions during deep search tasks. This makes AI systems better at finding answers by dividing the process into two parts: one that handles long-term strategy and one that focuses on the specific steps.
What's the problem?
The problem is that traditional AI systems sometimes mix planning and execution together, which can make the search slower and less effective because the system struggles to focus on both the overall goal and the small details at the same time.
What's the solution?
The researchers designed a framework that breaks the process into two levels. The first level creates a plan or outline for how to tackle the search, focusing on high-level reasoning. The second level then carries out the plan with more specialized, detailed actions. This separation helps both parts work better and more efficiently.
Why it matters?
This matters because it helps AI systems give better, more accurate answers faster, making them more useful for complex tasks like searching through large amounts of information or solving difficult problems.
Abstract
A hierarchical framework separates strategic planning from specialized execution in deep search tasks, improving answer quality and system efficiency over traditional RAG and agent-based systems.