Why RAG Should Be the Exception, Not the Default
RAG isn't broken—it's that we treated it as the default when it should have been the exception.
RAG was the obvious first move—pull data from your systems, centralize it in vector databases, use it to enhance AI outputs. Clean, simple, logical. But here's the design trade nobody talks about: you're effectively building a shadow data architecture that circumvents every access control you've spent years perfecting.
Agent-based systems represent a different design choice entirely. Instead of extracting and storing, you build agents that query source systems directly. Your existing authorization models stay intact. Data remains current. You eliminate the duplicate repositories that become compliance headaches and security risks.
Don't mistake this for a magic solution—agents introduce their own governance complexities. You need robust monitoring to track what systems agents access, comprehensive audit trails for all queries, and circuit breakers to prevent runaway behavior. But here's the crucial difference: these challenges are manageable with upfront planning, while RAG's security issues compound as you scale.
RAG isn't broken—it's that we treated it as the default when it should have been the exception. Most enterprises already have robust data governance. Agent architectures respect those investments instead of working around them. The trade is worth making: slightly more complex queries and monitoring in exchange for a dramatically simpler compliance and security posture.
Sourabh Satish
