quantization

Shorter and binary embeddings cut storage by orders of magnitude and lose a few points of retrieval. Decide with recall on your own queries and a rescoring step.

Quantization offers large savings with small average quality loss, and the averages hide where the loss lands. The interviewer wants evaluation on real workloads, by segment, before any cost win is claimed.

A vocabulary question that unlocks cost, latency and on-device decisions. The interviewer wants the idea, the trade-off and when it matters to a product.