Database optimized for storing and searching high-dimensional vectors, essential for AI applications like semantic search and recommendations. Like a library organized by meaning rather than alphabetically.
A search engine uses a vector database to find documents similar in meaning to a query, even if they don't share the same keywords.
There is no single dedicated AWS-managed “vector database” service; AWS commonly uses OpenSearch Service (vector search) or Aurora/RDS PostgreSQL with pgvector. Azure AI Search and GCP Vertex AI Vector Search provide managed vector indexing and similarity search. OCI offers native vector storage and similarity search in Oracle Database 23ai.