iterative retrieval

Single-shot retrieval breaks on questions that chain facts ('who directed the highest-grossing film of 2019?'). The signal is decomposing or iterating retrieval rather than retrieving once, and guarding against errors compounding across hops. Here is the answer.

Standard RAG retrieves once and generates; agentic RAG makes retrieval an iterative, reasoning-driven loop. The signal is the agent deciding whether, what, and when to retrieve, then re-retrieving until the evidence holds.