Generative engines
| Category | Foundational concept |
|---|---|
| Used in | Search, information retrieval, AI-mediated search |
| Related concepts | |
| Generative Engine Optimization Ghost Citation Selection Rate Entity Home | |
Generative engines are systems that retrieve, synthesize, and generate information in response to a user query rather than only returning a ranked list of documents. The term became central to the 2023 research that introduced Generative Engine Optimization.
Search and retrieval
A generative engine can combine model knowledge with web search, document retrieval, reranking, context construction and answer generation.
Citations
Some systems expose visible citations while others provide little or no source attribution. A visible citation is not necessarily a complete record of every source that affected the answer.
Optimization
Optimization can occur before retrieval, during source selection, through entity understanding, through the broader evidence corpus, or through content changes that make a retrieved source easier to use.