For founders · checklist
RAG or memory
Two words that get used interchangeably by people selling you things. They are not the same, they cost differently, and they fail differently.
What is on it
- RAG looks things up. Memory carries things forward.
- RAG reads your documents fresh on every question
- Memory remembers what this user said last Tuesday
- RAG is right when your answer lives in a file somewhere
- Memory is right when the answer is who the user is
- RAG fails by retrieving the wrong paragraph confidently
- Memory fails by remembering something the user wanted forgotten
- RAG costs grow with document count and query volume
- Memory costs grow with how long each conversation gets
- Most products that say memory have neither
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