Information Retrieval (IR)

Also known as: information retrieval (IR) · IR

Caesar AI Atlas Definition

IR, or information retrieval, is the field and process of finding relevant information from a collection of documents, records, or other content in response to a user query. Search engines, document retrieval systems, and retrieval components in RAG pipelines are common applications.

Other Definitions

Information Retrieval Source

Information retrieval (IR) is a key component of Vertex AI Search. It is the process of finding and retrieving relevant information from a large collection of data. In the context of Vertex AI, IR is used to retrieve documents from a corpus based on a user's query. Vertex AI offers a suite of APIs to help you build your own Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) applications or to build your own Search engine. For more information, see Use Vertex AI Search as a retrieval backend using RAG Engine.

Also Referenced In

Appen — AI Glossary

Concept Comparisons

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Information Retrieval vs Retrieval Augmented Generation

A side-by-side comparison of Information Retrieval and Retrieval Augmented Generation. It explains how finding relevant information differs from using retrieved information to ground generative AI responses.