AI & models
Vector database
Vector store
A database built specifically to store embeddings — those meaning-as-numbers lists — and to find the closest matches to a query almost instantly, even across millions of entries. A regular database is great at exact lookups ('find order #4821'); a vector database is great at 'find the things most similar in meaning to this.'
Why it matters
Part of Search over your own documents (RAG) → It's the memory behind RAG and search-by-meaning — the part that quickly fetches the handful of relevant passages an AI should read before it answers.
see also