Vector databases are gaining popularity due to the increasing involvement of startups and significant investments from venture capitalists. The surge in large language models and generative AI technologies has made vector databases essential for managing unstructured data like images, videos, and social media posts.

Unlike traditional relational databases, vector databases use vector embeddings to store data, which helps in capturing the essence and interconnections of various data points. This capability is particularly valuable in AI applications, including machine learning and AI chatbots like OpenAI’s GPT-4, enhancing context understanding and reducing errors like “hallucinations” in data interpretation.

The use of vector databases allows for efficient handling of large datasets, proving indispensable for real-time applications such as content recommendation and more accurate AI training and tuning.

ELI5 (Explain like I’m 5)

Still confused? Now worries! here’s an ELI5 (Explain like I’m 5) version:

Imagine you have a big box where you keep all your drawings and photos. A vector database is like a ‘special’ kind of box that helps you find exactly the drawing or photo you want really quickly. In a regular box, you might have to dig through everything to find what you’re looking for. But in this ‘special’ box, each drawing and photo has a tag that describes what’s in it, like “dog” “birthday party” or “beach.”

These tags aren’t just words; they’re vectors that tell you a lot about the picture, even things that aren’t written down, like how happy or colourful it is. When you ‘ask’ the box, “I want a picture with dogs” it uses these ‘codes’ (vectors) to find all the pictures with dogs much faster. It’s like it can understand what’s in each picture without having to look at them one by one (think of the capabilities with filtering).

This makes it great for when you have A LOT of pictures and you need to find the right ones quickly. That’s what makes vector databases really useful, especially for computers that need to handle lots of data like photos, videos, or text.