Imagine you have a company database containing thousands of documents. A user types the following into the search bar:
“How can I change my password?”
A traditional search engine will look for documents containing words such as change or password.
But what if the relevant document is called “Recovering Your Login Credentials”?
The meaning is obvious to a person. A traditional keyword search, however, may not recognize that both queries are about the same thing.
This is where vector search comes in. Instead of looking only for matching words, it compares the meaning of content represented as numerical vectors.