Is RAG Dead? The Pioneer Who Invented AI's Memory Layer Answers — with Douwe Kiela, Co-Founder, Contextual AI {ICYMI}

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RAG didn't just survive the LLM boom — it became the backbone of how enterprises put AI to work. In this replay, we sit down with Douwe Kiela, the AI researcher who led the team that introduced Retrieval-Augmented Generation in 2020 and went on to co-found Contextual AI. Douwe unpacks whether RAG is here to stay, why most enterprise AI dies in the gap between a great demo and production, how to tame hallucinations, and what actually separates a real "agent" from the buzzword. A clear-eyed conversation on building AI that's grounded, useful, and safe to deploy.

• 00:46 Introducing Douwe Kiela 
• 01:37 RAG - Here to Stay or Go? 
• 06:59 LLMs with Context 
• 08:20 Making AI Successful 
• 10:34 Why Contextual AI? 
• 17:18 LLM versus SLMs 
• 20:28 Speed over Perfection 
• 22:07 Hallucinations 
• 26:02 Making AI Easy to Consume 
• 28:50 Defining an Agent 
• 32:53 Reaching Contextual AI 
• 33:14 The Contrarian View 
• 34:37 The Risks of AI 
• 36:53 For Fun

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/douwekiela 

Website: contextual.ai

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