Similarity search performs the retrieval component of Retrieval-Augmented Generation. Source documents or other content are converted into vector embeddings and stored in a vector-capable database. The user’s question is similarly transformed into an embedding, and a vector-distance or similarity calculation identifies stored embeddings whose semantic meaning is closest to the query. Oracle describes semantic similarity search as identifying and retrieving data points that closely match a query by comparing feature vectors in the vector store.

The resulting documents or chunks provide relevant contextual information to the generative model. Select AI with RAG, for example, retrieves content from a configured vector store through semantic similarity search and places that content into an augmented prompt sent to the LLM. The LLM then generates a response grounded in retrieved enterprise information. Similarity search therefore does not create the original documents, perform authentication, or eliminate response generation. Returning raw vectors alone would also fail to achieve RAG’s purpose because the retrieved source content must ultimately inform the generated response. The uploaded question set confirms the retrieval of relevant stored content as the correct function.

Study Guide reference: Working with AI and Vector Foundations — semantic similarity search, vector retrieval, embeddings, and RAG architecture.

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