How RAG Works in Cortx

Overview

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is what allows Cortx to understand questions and answer them using your own data.
Instead of depending only on what the AI already knows, Cortx looks inside your organization’s information — your resources, conversations, and shared files to find the most relevant details before giving a response.

It’s what makes Cortx different. You don’t have to search or dig through folders anymore just ask a question, and Cortx replies using facts from what your team has already discussed or stored.

How Cortx Understands Your Knowledge

Cortx brings together everything your team knows into one connected space.
It doesn’t just look at files — it also learns from the conversations and work happening across your tools.

This includes:

  • Resources like reports, presentations, and notes.
  • Conversations from meetings, team chats, or standups across platforms like Teams or Slack.
  • Tasks and updates from ongoing projects and workflows.
  • Templates, Specs, and Dashboards that define, track, and visualize your work.

Cortx treats all of these as parts of your collective knowledge. It organizes and remembers them so that whenever you ask a question, it can pull information from the right places instantly.

What Happens Behind the Scenes

When new information like a resource, chat transcript, or note, is added to Cortx, the system reads it carefully and breaks it into smaller pieces that are easier to search.
These pieces are stored in a special type of database that focuses on meaning rather than exact words. So even if you phrase your question differently from how something was written, Cortx can still understand and find it.
When you ask a question, Cortx looks at what you’ve asked, figures out which parts of your data are most relevant, and then prepares an answer using that content. You see a simple, clear response but behind the scenes, it’s the result of intelligent retrieval and reasoning.

Different Knowledge Scopes in Cortx

To make sure answers are accurate and relevant, Cortx uses different knowledge scopes or levels of access depending on what you’re doing.

My Knowledge
This includes everything that belongs to you — your uploaded resources, your past conversations, and the notes or content you’ve worked on. It’s your personal space inside Cortx, and the answers come only from what you’ve interacted with before.

Org Knowledge
This combines your personal knowledge with everything shared across your organization that you have permission to view. It helps Cortx answer broader questions, connect related information across teams, and bring together company-wide insights.

Chat Attachments
This is the most focused scope. It’s limited to the current chat. Cortx only uses the resources and links attached to on-going conversation — ignoring everything else. This is useful when you want to stay on one topic, like reviewing a specific spec, dashboard, or meeting summary. By switching between these scopes automatically, Cortx always finds the right balance between personal, organizational, and chat-specific information.

How Cortx Finds and Builds Answers

Once user selects which scope to use, it searches for the most relevant pieces of information — from resources, conversations, or updates — and collects them together. It then uses this information to build a clear and complete answer in everyday language. Each answer can also include short highlights or links to show where the information came from, so you always know the source. For the user, this process feels effortless — ask a question, and Cortx responds using information you can trust.

Learning and Improving Over Time

Cortx gets smarter the more it’s used. It starts to understand what types of questions people ask most often, which sources are most useful, and how to prioritize recent or updated information. This means that over time, answers become faster, sharper, and more aligned with how your team actually works. Your organization’s knowledge grows — and Cortx grows with it.

Why It Matters

Cortx’s RAG process helps connect everything that’s been written, said, or shared in your organization. It brings all your knowledge together in one place, so it can be used easily and confidently. This approach ensures that:
  • Answers are always accurate, based on your verified data.
  • Results stay focused, using the right scope for the question.
  • Sources remain visible, so every insight can be traced back.
  • Information stays secure, always within your environment.
Cortx turns your organization’s scattered information into something alive and searchable — knowledge that responds when you ask.

Conclusion

RAG in Cortx changes the way teams access information. By bringing together resources, conversations, templates, specs, dashboards, and shared knowledge, Cortx helps you get clear, reliable answers — instantly. Whether you’re referring to your personal work, organization-wide data, or just what’s happening in the current chat, Cortx understands what to use and how to explain it simply.

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