RAG chatbot vs RAG-powered search: same technique, different product
On the mic Originally published at https://pranjulrathour.scult.in/blog/rag-chatbot-vs-rag-search-different-ux-different-pipeline . That copy is the canonical version and gets updates first. A chat interface and a search bar can both sit on top of the same retrieval pipeline, but they're different products with different demands on that pipeline. What differs A chatbot needs conversation history folded into retrieval — a follow-up question like 'what about the second one' only makes sense with context from the prior turn. A search UI can show multiple ranked results and let the user judge, which tolerates weaker retrieval better than a chatbot's single committed answer. Users forgive a search result being slightly off-topic more readily than a confidently wrong chatbot sentence — the UX shapes how much retrieval quality actually matters. Picking the right product for your data If your retrieval quality isn't yet reliable, a search-style UI (rank and let th...