@inproceedings{zhu-etal-2026-dial,
title = "{DIAL}: Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning for Realistic Multi-Turn Dialogue Simulation",
author = "Zhu, Ziyi and
Tieleman, Olivier and
Stamatis, Caitlin A. and
Smyth, Luka and
Hull, Thomas D. and
Cahn, Daniel Reid and
Chen, Jinghong and
Malgaroli, Matteo",
editor = "Lee, Hung-Yi and
Dev, Sunipa and
Li, Jessy and
Elliott, Desmond",
booktitle = "Findings of the {A}ssociation for {C}omputational {L}inguistics: {EMNLP} 2026",
month = oct,
year = "2026",
address = "Budapest, Hungary",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.46/",
pages = "925--942",
ISBN = "979-8-89176-462-0",
abstract = "Realistic user simulation is crucial for training and evaluating multi-turn dialogue systems, yet creating simulators that accurately replicate human behavior remains a significant challenge. An effective simulator must expose the failure modes of the systems under evaluation. This work introduces Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning (DIAL), an adversarial framework that iteratively enhances user simulator realism through a competitive dynamic between a generator (user simulator) and a discriminator. When applied to mental health support, a domain characterized by diverse failure types and a critical dependence on realistic user behavior for failure detection, DIAL restores lexical diversity diminished by supervised fine-tuning and drastically reduces discriminator accuracy. The resulting simulator exhibits a strong correlation between simulated and real failure occurrence rates while maintaining low distributional divergence of failure modes. These findings indicate that DIAL is a promising method for developing realistic user simulators in multi-turn dialogue, facilitating reliable and cost-effective system evaluation prior to deployment."
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<abstract>Realistic user simulation is crucial for training and evaluating multi-turn dialogue systems, yet creating simulators that accurately replicate human behavior remains a significant challenge. An effective simulator must expose the failure modes of the systems under evaluation. This work introduces Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning (DIAL), an adversarial framework that iteratively enhances user simulator realism through a competitive dynamic between a generator (user simulator) and a discriminator. When applied to mental health support, a domain characterized by diverse failure types and a critical dependence on realistic user behavior for failure detection, DIAL restores lexical diversity diminished by supervised fine-tuning and drastically reduces discriminator accuracy. The resulting simulator exhibits a strong correlation between simulated and real failure occurrence rates while maintaining low distributional divergence of failure modes. These findings indicate that DIAL is a promising method for developing realistic user simulators in multi-turn dialogue, facilitating reliable and cost-effective system evaluation prior to deployment.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T DIAL: Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning for Realistic Multi-Turn Dialogue Simulation
%A Zhu, Ziyi
%A Tieleman, Olivier
%A Stamatis, Caitlin A.
%A Smyth, Luka
%A Hull, Thomas D.
%A Cahn, Daniel Reid
%A Chen, Jinghong
%A Malgaroli, Matteo
%Y Lee, Hung-Yi
%Y Dev, Sunipa
%Y Li, Jessy
%Y Elliott, Desmond
%S Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026
%D 2026
%8 October
%I Association for Computational Linguistics
%C Budapest, Hungary
%@ 979-8-89176-462-0
%F zhu-etal-2026-dial
%X Realistic user simulation is crucial for training and evaluating multi-turn dialogue systems, yet creating simulators that accurately replicate human behavior remains a significant challenge. An effective simulator must expose the failure modes of the systems under evaluation. This work introduces Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning (DIAL), an adversarial framework that iteratively enhances user simulator realism through a competitive dynamic between a generator (user simulator) and a discriminator. When applied to mental health support, a domain characterized by diverse failure types and a critical dependence on realistic user behavior for failure detection, DIAL restores lexical diversity diminished by supervised fine-tuning and drastically reduces discriminator accuracy. The resulting simulator exhibits a strong correlation between simulated and real failure occurrence rates while maintaining low distributional divergence of failure modes. These findings indicate that DIAL is a promising method for developing realistic user simulators in multi-turn dialogue, facilitating reliable and cost-effective system evaluation prior to deployment.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.46/
%P 925-942
Markdown (Informal)
[DIAL: Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning for Realistic Multi-Turn Dialogue Simulation](https://aclanthology.org/2026.findings-emnlp.46/) (Zhu et al., Findings 2026)
ACL
- Ziyi Zhu, Olivier Tieleman, Caitlin A. Stamatis, Luka Smyth, Thomas D. Hull, Daniel Reid Cahn, Jinghong Chen, and Matteo Malgaroli. 2026. DIAL: Direct Iterative Adversarial Learning for Realistic Multi-Turn Dialogue Simulation. In Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: EMNLP 2026, pages 925–942, Budapest, Hungary. Association for Computational Linguistics.