How Agentic RAG Differs from Naive RAG: The Agent Decides When and What to Retrieve
~15 min read
Naive RAG runs one fixed retrieve-then-generate sequence for every query. Agentic RAG threads decision-making agents through the pipeline instead, so the system itself decides whether retrieval is needed and where to get it from.
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Key points
- •Naive RAG runs one fixed retrieve-then-generate sequence identically for every query, regardless of what it actually needs
- •Agentic RAG threads decision-making agents through the pipeline: query rewriting, need-more-detail decision, source selection, relevance checking
- •Where naive RAG always retrieves from the same source, agentic RAG decides IF retrieval is needed and WHICH source to use
- •Where naive RAG returns whatever it generates, agentic RAG validates the response and can loop back if it isn't good enough
- •The added robustness comes with real added complexity/latency — worth it when naive RAG demonstrably fails on some query class, not as a universal default