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RAG & Search

Latent semantic analysis

Finding themes in writing by examining patterns in which words appear across documents.

Example

A search tool groups documents using patterns in the words they contain.

Why people use it

It can find broader word patterns that help connect related documents.

What you'll hear

“These pages may concern the same subject despite different wording.”

What this means for you

Test ambiguous searches and documents that use different words for similar ideas.

Can you control it?

Developer-only

The people building or running the AI choose this setup. An everyday user generally needs their help to change how this part works.

Common questions

Does it preserve the full order of sentences?
No. It focuses on word-and-document patterns, so the detailed order of the writing is largely lost.
Does it understand every meaning of a word?
No. A word used in different ways can still be represented too broadly.
Can it help with a search that uses different wording?
Sometimes. Shared word patterns can connect related material even without an exact wording match.

Related terms

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