2024 has been a transformative year for retrieval-augmented generation. From architectural innovations to new embedding models, the field has matured significantly.
Major Developments
Agentic RAG Emerges
The integration of RAG with agentic workflows—where AI systems take actions based on retrieved information—has opened new application categories.
Multi-Modal Retrieval
Combining text, images, and structured data in unified retrieval systems became practical this year, thanks to advances in multi-modal embeddings.
Evaluation Standardization
The community converged on better evaluation practices, with MTEB and BEIR becoming standard benchmarks for retrieval quality.
Enterprise Adoption
Fortune 500 companies moved from POCs to production deployments, validating RAG as an enterprise-ready architecture.
Looking Ahead to 2025
We expect continued progress in:
- Real-time knowledge updates
- Better handling of structured data
- Improved reasoning over retrieved content
- Tighter integration with knowledge graphs
It's an exciting time to be building RAG systems.