2024-07-01
arXiv

Searching for Best Practices in Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Xiaohua Wang , Zhenghua Wang , Xuan Gao , Feiran Zhang , Yixin Wu
The paper investigates different RAG approaches to identify optimal practices that balance performance and efficiency, and shows that multimodal retrieval techniques can enhance question-answering and content generation.
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) techniques have proven to be effective in integrating up-to-date information, mitigating hallucinations, and enhancing response quality, particularly in specialized domains. While many RAG approaches have been proposed to enhance large language models through query-dependent retrievals, these approaches still suffer from their complex implementation and prolonged response times. Typically, a RAG workflow involves multiple processing steps, each of which can be executed in various ways. Here, we investigate existing RAG approaches and their potential combinations to identify optimal RAG practices. Through extensive experiments, we suggest several strategies for deploying RAG that balance both performance and efficiency. Moreover, we demonstrate that multimodal retrieval techniques can significantly enhance question-answering capabilities about visual inputs and accelerate the generation of multimodal content using a "retrieval as generation" strategy.