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Explore Before Committing: Hypothesis-Guided Search for Deep Research Agents

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Sep 1, 2026 · UTC

Deep-research agents answer complex questions by interacting with search and browsing tools, yet they often search along a single evolving trajectory. Our trajectory-level analysis reveals a common failure mode in which the agent may encounter an early search state with several plausible directions, but follow one direction before collecting enough comparative evidence. Once this happens, subsequent tool calls tend to reinforce the same path, increasing the chance of failure when the initial direction is misleading. We further find that successful trajectories reduce this risk through two beha

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