AI Glossary · Definition
What is Embedding?
Embedding: An embedding is a list of numbers that represents the meaning of a piece of text, image or other data, so that similar meanings have similar numbers.
By DAIDU EditorialUpdated
Embedding, explained
Embeddings let computers compare meaning rather than exact words. 'Refund policy' and 'how do I get my money back' share few words but have similar embeddings. Businesses use embeddings for semantic search, recommendations, grouping similar feedback and, most often, as the retrieval step in RAG. Embeddings are created by specialised models and stored in a vector database for fast searching.
Example
A retailer converts all product descriptions to embeddings so customers searching 'something warm for a desert night' find jackets and blankets.