AI Glossary

Reranking

Also called reranker

What does “Reranking” mean?

Reranking: Second pass in search or RAG where a more careful model reorders an initial set of retrieved results by how well each one actually answers the query. Initial retrieval is fast but rough; reranking spends extra computation on a short list to put the best matches first.

Reranking visual guide: Second pass in search or RAG where a more careful model reorders an initial set of retrieved results by how well each one actually answers the query. Initial retrieval is fast but rough; reranking spends extra computation on a short list to put the best matches first.
Visual guide Open full size (new tab)

What is an example of “Reranking”?

Vector search returns 50 candidate passages, and a reranker picks the top five that get passed to the model.

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See also

Semantic searchTermRetrieval-augmented generationTermVector databaseTerm

Same topic

Rate limitTermPrompt engineeringTermStreamingTermPrompt cachingTermStructured outputTerm