WavRAG: Audio-Integrated Retrieval Augmented Generation for Spoken Dialogue Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Chen, Yifu, Ji, Shengpeng, Wang, Haoxiao, Wang, Ziqing, Chen, Siyu, He, Jinzheng, Xu, Jin, Zhao, Zhou
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Chen, Yifu
Ji, Shengpeng
Wang, Haoxiao
Wang, Ziqing
Chen, Siyu
He, Jinzheng
Xu, Jin
Zhao, Zhou
author_facet Chen, Yifu
Ji, Shengpeng
Wang, Haoxiao
Wang, Ziqing
Chen, Siyu
He, Jinzheng
Xu, Jin
Zhao, Zhou
contents Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has gained widespread adoption owing to its capacity to empower large language models (LLMs) to integrate external knowledge. However, existing RAG frameworks are primarily designed for text-based LLMs and rely on Automatic Speech Recognition to process speech input, which discards crucial audio information, risks transcription errors, and increases computational overhead. Therefore, we introduce WavRAG, the first retrieval augmented generation framework with native, end-to-end audio support. WavRAG offers two key features: 1) Bypassing ASR, WavRAG directly processes raw audio for both embedding and retrieval. 2) WavRAG integrates audio and text into a unified knowledge representation. Specifically, we propose the WavRetriever to facilitate the retrieval from a text-audio hybrid knowledge base, and further enhance the in-context capabilities of spoken dialogue models through the integration of chain-of-thought reasoning. In comparison to state-of-the-art ASR-Text RAG pipelines, WavRAG achieves comparable retrieval performance while delivering a 10x acceleration. Furthermore, WavRAG's unique text-audio hybrid retrieval capability extends the boundaries of RAG to the audio modality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_14727
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle WavRAG: Audio-Integrated Retrieval Augmented Generation for Spoken Dialogue Models
Chen, Yifu
Ji, Shengpeng
Wang, Haoxiao
Wang, Ziqing
Chen, Siyu
He, Jinzheng
Xu, Jin
Zhao, Zhou
Sound
Artificial Intelligence
Audio and Speech Processing
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) has gained widespread adoption owing to its capacity to empower large language models (LLMs) to integrate external knowledge. However, existing RAG frameworks are primarily designed for text-based LLMs and rely on Automatic Speech Recognition to process speech input, which discards crucial audio information, risks transcription errors, and increases computational overhead. Therefore, we introduce WavRAG, the first retrieval augmented generation framework with native, end-to-end audio support. WavRAG offers two key features: 1) Bypassing ASR, WavRAG directly processes raw audio for both embedding and retrieval. 2) WavRAG integrates audio and text into a unified knowledge representation. Specifically, we propose the WavRetriever to facilitate the retrieval from a text-audio hybrid knowledge base, and further enhance the in-context capabilities of spoken dialogue models through the integration of chain-of-thought reasoning. In comparison to state-of-the-art ASR-Text RAG pipelines, WavRAG achieves comparable retrieval performance while delivering a 10x acceleration. Furthermore, WavRAG's unique text-audio hybrid retrieval capability extends the boundaries of RAG to the audio modality.
title WavRAG: Audio-Integrated Retrieval Augmented Generation for Spoken Dialogue Models
topic Sound
Artificial Intelligence
Audio and Speech Processing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.14727