Enterprise RAG rebuild: hybrid retrieval adoption tripled in Q1 2026

VB Pulse survey data from Jan–Mar 2026 shows enterprise buyers shifting toward hybrid retrieval and custom/provider-native stacks for RAG.

Vector database adoption declined, while interest in retrieval optimization rose and evaluation spending fell.

The trend suggests companies are redesigning RAG for production agentic workloads, not just experimenting with semantic search.

A meaningful share of respondents still had no production RAG system, especially in slower-moving sectors.