AI glossary
Hybrid search
Combining keyword search (BM25) and semantic vector search and then reranking the results. Beats either alone on real-world queries. The default for production RAG.
Related terms
RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
Fetching relevant documents from a database first, then asking the model to answer using only those documents. The default architecture for grounded chatbots and knowledge assistants.
Reranking
Running retrieved candidates through a second model to reorder by relevance. Top-50 from vector search reranked to top-5 dramatically improves precision. We use Cohere Rerank.
