While databases traditionally deal with neat, structured tables, the landscape is shifting. Certain modern database types are now uniquely equipped to handle unstructured data and plain language questions. The critical innovation? Vector search capabilities.
Why Vector Search Changes Everything
In a traditional database, a simple SQL query works perfectly for structured data.
Imagine searching for total sales for the Netherlands. A quick SELECT Amount FROM Sales WHERE Country = 'Netherlands' does the trick. That's a precise, easy match.
But it changes drastically when you add natural language processing (NLP) and unstructured data into the mix. NLP lets you ask questions in plain English, ditching rigid code. The unstructured data makes finding answers far more complex, as there's no tidy column to match your query against.
Consider an employee asking their internal system, "What benefits am I entitled to as a parent in the Netherlands?" Without vector search, the system would likely hunt for exact keyword matches, probably returning nothing useful from the vast company documentation.
With vector search, your query is transformed into its semantic "fingerprint." The search then includes ideas and topics close in meaning to the query, even if they use entirely different words. Suddenly, "parental leave" documents appear as highly relevant results, alongside policies on "childcare benefits" or "family support."
Inside the Vector Engine: Meaning as Math
To become truly searchable, unstructured content—whether it's paragraphs of text, images, or audio clips—needs a "special treatment." This transformation is handled by an embedding model.
This model acts as a sophisticated translator, converting messy content into a long string of numbers: a "vector." This vector is essentially a numerical fingerprint that captures the semantic meaning of that content. Content with similar meanings will have vectors that are numerically "close" to each other in a multi-dimensional space.
Imagine assigning a unique set of coordinates to every animal on the planet based on its characteristics. All cat breeds would cluster together, regardless of their specific names, as would all dog breeds. When you search this database for "naked cat breeds," your question is also converted into its own vector. The database then rapidly compares your query's coordinates to all the stored content vectors, instantly returning the ones that are closest—like finding all the Sphynx or Peterbald documents, even if you didn't know their names.
In essence, vector search provides the ways to transform unstructured data from a chaotic, unsearchable mass into a rich, semantically searchable knowledge base. And while specialized, single-purpose vector databases are a possibility, this functionality comes in different flavours, including databases that have vector processing. This allows you to deal with structured and unstructured data at the same time, delivering more accurate and contextually relevant results using RAG.