Why "Retrieve More, Rerank" is Wrong? Deep Dive on Drowning in Documents Paper

CShorten30 · x · 2026-08-17

This episode of the Weaviate Podcast features Mathew Jacob discussing his paper "Drowning in Documents" from Databricks. It challenges the conventional wisdom of "retrieve more, rerank, get better results," suggesting this approach often fails. The discussion covers the paper's insights on why simply increasing retrieval volume doesn't work and how it influences Weaviate's exploration of scaling reranked retrieval systems.

Related event: Weaviate Podcast Hosts Drowning in Documents Author on RAG Retrieval-Reranking Pitfalls(5 posts)→

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