RAG
1 min read · Reviewed 17 Oct 2026
In short
Letting an AI look things up before it answers.
In plain English
RAG stands for retrieval-augmented generation. Instead of answering purely from training, the system first fetches relevant material — your documents, a knowledge base, the web — and then writes its answer using what it just found.
A real example
A support assistant that answers from your actual help pages rather than from general knowledge is doing RAG. It retrieves the right page, then writes the reply grounded in that page.
Why it matters
Retrieval is the most practical fix for invention. Answers grounded in a real source can be checked, cited and kept current — which is what makes AI safe to point at customers.
