Hybrid Search as the New Baseline for Retrieval

This document is a technical report that outlines the advancements in hybrid search technology, particularly its integration of vector and lexical retrieval methods. It explains how vector search, which retrieves information based on meaning, has limitations when dealing with exact terms and technical terminology. Hybrid search addresses these limitations by combining semantic understanding from vector retrieval with the precision of lexical retrieval. The report details the improvements in retrieval performance, citing specific enhancements in precision, recall, and F1 scores when using Bitext's linguistic analysis compared to standard configurations. It also provides examples demonstrating the effectiveness of linguistic analysis in recognizing compound words in various languages, which traditional analyzers may overlook. The report concludes that the future of search lies in the combination of vector and lexical retrieval, emphasizing the importance of high-quality lexical components for optimal search outcomes.