Explaining Vector Databases in 3 Levels of Difficulty





Vector databases have been getting a lot of attention recently, with many vector database startups raising millions in funding.

Chances are you have probably already heard of them but didn’t really care about them until now —at least, that’s what I guess why you are here now…

A vector database is a type of database that stores and manages unstructured data, such as text, images, or audio, in vector embeddings (high-dimensional vectors) to make it easy to find and retrieve similar objects quickly.

If that definition only caused more confusion, then let’s go step by step. This article is inspired by WIRED’s “5 Levels” Video Series and unpacks what vector databases are in the following three levels of difficulty:

If you want to find a specific book quickly, arranging your bookshelf by genre and then by the author makes much more sense than by color. That’s why most libraries are organized in this way to help you find what you’re looking for quickly.