- In short
- Retrieval method should match the shape of the data. Dense vector retrieval excels at semantic or conceptual matching where the query and answer use different words for the same idea. Sparse or keyword retrieval excels at exact-term matching such as product codes, legal citations, or proper nouns. Structured data such as tables or databases is often better served by a direct query (SQL, API call) than by embedding-based retrieval.
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