RAG Agents in Prod: 10 Lessons We Learned — Douwe Kiela, creator of RAG
Apr 10, 2025 · 16:56
Douwe Kiela, CEO of Contextual AI and creator of RAG, shares 10 lessons from deploying enterprise RAG systems at scale. He argues that language models are only 20% of a larger system; success comes from focusing on systems, not models, and specializing over AGI to unlock domain expertise. Enterprise data is the real moat, but pilots are easy while production is hard—design for production from day one. Speed beats perfection: ship barely functional to real users early and iterate. Avoid boring engineering chores like chunking; instead, integrate AI into existing workflows to drive adoption. Accuracy is table stakes; handle inaccuracy with observability and attribution. Be ambitious: aim for transformative ROI, not low-hanging fruit like basic HR questions.
