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AI & Machine Learning Medium Level ~3 min read

When should a company choose retrieval-augmented generation instead of fine-tuning?

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Use retrieval-augmented generation when answers need access to changing, private, or attributable knowledge. Retrieve authorized documents, provide relevant passages, and require grounded answers with source references. Fine-tuning is more appropriate for repeatedly teaching a task patte , style, or output behavior; it is not a dependable live database. Both can be combined. Evaluate retrieval quality separately from answer quality, enforce document permissions before generation, and test unsupported questions. Retrieval can reduce unsupported claims but does not eliminate hallucinations or prompt-injection risks.