Yandex has introduced Sona, a generative recommender designed to replace the entire recommendation cascade. According to MarkTechPost, a single transformer performed both candidate generation and ranking in Yandex Music, removing the need for separate stages and hand-engineered features.
In an A/B test, Sona lifted likes by 11.42%. The result suggests that one generative model can handle tasks that previously required a multi-stage pipeline, though the report does not include details on other metrics or broader rollout plans.