EvoX: Meta-Evolution for Automated Discovery

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Authors: Shu Liu, Shubham Agarwal, Monishwaran Maheswaran, Mert Cemri, Zhifei Li, Qiuyang Mang, A. K. Naren, Ethan Boneh, Audrey Cheng, Melissa Pan, Alexander Du, Kurt Keutzer
+5 more Alvin Cheung, Alexandros G. Dimakis, Koushik Sen, Matei Zaharia, Ion Stoica
Cited by: 1

Abstract

Recent work such as AlphaEvolve has shown that combining LLM-driven optimization with evolutionary search can effectively improve programs, prompts, and algorithms across domains. In this paradigm, previously evaluated solutions are reused to guide the model toward new candidate solutions. Crucially, the effectiveness of this evolution process depends on the search strategy: how prior solutions are selected and varied to generate new candidates. However, most existing methods rely on fixed search strategies with predefined knobs (e.g., explore-exploit ratios) that remain static throughout execution. While effective in some settings, these approaches often fail to adapt across tasks, or even within the same task as the search space changes over time. We introduce EvoX, an adaptive evolution method that optimizes its own evolution process. EvoX jointly evolves candidate solutions and the search strategies used to generate them, continuously updating how prior solutions are selected and varied based on progress. This enables the system to dynamically shift between different search strategies during the optimization process. Across nearly 200 real-world optimization tasks, EvoX outperforms existing AI-driven evolutionary methods including AlphaEvolve, OpenEvolve, GEPA, and ShinkaEvolve on the majority of tasks.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Software Testing and Debugging Techniques Advanced Multi-Objective Optimization Algorithms Machine Learning and Data Classification

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
26 February 2026
Document type
Preprint