Faithful Query Resolution for Conversational Search

Abstract

Conversational query rewriting makes context-dependent requests explicit for retrieval, but additional context can introduce an information need the user did not express. This raises a question about the interaction between query fidelity and retrieval breadth. This paper examines that interaction in behavior-adaptive conversational search, using iKAT SCAI 2026 as the evaluation setting. We compare five query-generation configurations within a behavior-adaptive assistant using BM25 and SPLADE retrieval. A minimal-faithful resolver preserves the user's wording and resolves only context-dependent references; weighted reciprocal rank fusion combines its rankings with those from a learned rewriter and the raw utterance. Offline evaluation shows that adding these formulations recovers recall over the faithful query alone, with a slight reduction in nDCG@10. Across our five iKAT SCAI 2026 submissions, the weighted configuration obtains the highest mean retrieval scores, reaching nDCG@5 of 0.534, a 5.3\% relative improvement over the strongest alternative. However, this retrieval advantage does not coincide with the highest conversational satisfaction scores. These findings motivate separating faithful query interpretation from retrieval expansion, while assessing their effects on conversational utility independently.