Definition

RAG

Retrieval-Augmented Generation gives a model your data at inference time instead of retraining it. Documents are chunked, converted to embeddings, and stored in a vector database; a user's question is embedded the same way, the nearest chunks are retrieved, and they are fed to the model alongside the question. The book's summary: it is a search engine wired into a language model, and it grounds answers in real documents.

RAG diagram from Intelligence at Scale
Diagram from chapter 9, What Is an Agent?

Explained in

Chapter 9: What Is an Agent?

The moment you give an LLM access to knowledge or tools, it becomes an agent. And that makes all the difference.

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