What is Embedding?
TL;DR
A technique that converts text or images into numerical vectors. The foundational technology for similarity search and RAG.
Embedding: Definition & Explanation
Embedding is a technique that converts data such as text, images, or audio into numerical vectors (arrays of hundreds to thousands of numbers) that preserve semantic meaning. Concepts that are similar in meaning are represented as vectors that are close together in the vector space, making embeddings useful for similarity search, recommendations, and clustering. In RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), documents are converted into embeddings and stored in a vector database, enabling rapid retrieval of the most relevant information for a user's query. Services like OpenAI Embeddings API and Google Vertex AI Embeddings make this technology readily accessible.