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ANN (Approximate Nearest Neighbor)
Algorithms that trade off a tiny fraction of accuracy to search millions of vectors 100x faster than brute-force comparisons.
Why it exists
Brute-force k-NN compares a query against millions of vectors one-by-one, which is too slow at scale.
How it works
Organizes vectors into spatial graphs (HNSW) or inverted clusters (IVF) to navigate directly to the most relevant region in milliseconds.
Related terms
Where you'll use this
roadmap