Definition
A vector is a numerical representation of information in a multidimensional space.
In AI systems, vectors can represent the semantic meaning of words, tokens, sentences, documents, images, or other information. The central idea is that items with similar meanings can be represented by vectors that are close together in vector space, while less-related concepts can be farther apart.
This makes vectors particularly useful for:
- Semantic search
- Similarity matching
- Recommendations
- Retrieval systems
- AI applications using contextual information
The process of representing information numerically in this way is commonly referred to as vectorization.
Why It Matters
Vectors and vector databases help you understand semantic retrieval — how an AI product finds relevant information by meaning, not just keyword matching.