From Task-Specific Models to Unified Systems: A Review of Model Merging Approaches

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ruan, Wei, Yang, Tianze, Zhou, Yifan, Liu, Tianming, Lu, Jin
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Ruan, Wei
Yang, Tianze
Zhou, Yifan
Liu, Tianming
Lu, Jin
author_facet Ruan, Wei
Yang, Tianze
Zhou, Yifan
Liu, Tianming
Lu, Jin
contents Model merging has achieved significant success, with numerous innovative methods proposed to enhance capabilities by combining multiple models. However, challenges persist due to the lack of a unified framework for classification and systematic comparative analysis, leading to inconsistencies in terminologies and categorizations. Meanwhile, as an increasing number of fine-tuned models are publicly available, their original training data often remain inaccessible due to privacy concerns or intellectual property restrictions. This makes traditional multi-task learning based on shared training data impractical. In scenarios where direct access to training data is infeasible, merging model parameters to create a unified model with broad generalization across multiple domains becomes crucial, further underscoring the importance of model merging techniques. Despite the rapid progress in this field, a comprehensive taxonomy and survey summarizing recent advances and predicting future directions are still lacking. This paper addresses these gaps by establishing a new taxonomy of model merging methods, systematically comparing different approaches, and providing an overview of key developments. By offering a structured perspective on this evolving area, we aim to help newcomers quickly grasp the field's landscape and inspire further innovations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_08998
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Task-Specific Models to Unified Systems: A Review of Model Merging Approaches
Ruan, Wei
Yang, Tianze
Zhou, Yifan
Liu, Tianming
Lu, Jin
Machine Learning
Model merging has achieved significant success, with numerous innovative methods proposed to enhance capabilities by combining multiple models. However, challenges persist due to the lack of a unified framework for classification and systematic comparative analysis, leading to inconsistencies in terminologies and categorizations. Meanwhile, as an increasing number of fine-tuned models are publicly available, their original training data often remain inaccessible due to privacy concerns or intellectual property restrictions. This makes traditional multi-task learning based on shared training data impractical. In scenarios where direct access to training data is infeasible, merging model parameters to create a unified model with broad generalization across multiple domains becomes crucial, further underscoring the importance of model merging techniques. Despite the rapid progress in this field, a comprehensive taxonomy and survey summarizing recent advances and predicting future directions are still lacking. This paper addresses these gaps by establishing a new taxonomy of model merging methods, systematically comparing different approaches, and providing an overview of key developments. By offering a structured perspective on this evolving area, we aim to help newcomers quickly grasp the field's landscape and inspire further innovations.
title From Task-Specific Models to Unified Systems: A Review of Model Merging Approaches
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08998