Definition
Plain language
The part of an AI search system that goes and finds the documents to read.
As stated in the literature
The component that maps a query to a ranked set of corpus items, typically via dense embedding similarity, sparse lexical matching, or a hybrid, feeding the top results into the generator's context.
Also called: retrievers
Why it matters: Whatever the retriever picks is all the model gets to read, so its choices quietly set the ceiling on how good the final answer can be.
For example, when you ask about a refund policy, the retriever is the piece that scans the company's help pages and hands the model the three most relevant ones.
Heard on the show
“If I ask the assistant to plan my commute, the retriever will happily pull up the cycling memory because cycling is about commuting.”Episode 031 — When Your AI Assistant Won't Let Go of Old Facts About You