# How should you evaluate agentic RAG embeddings for Zilliz?

Source: https://zilliz.com/ai-faq/how-should-you-evaluate-agentic-rag-embeddings-for-zilliz
Author: zilliz

Evaluate embeddings for agentic RAG by testing retrieval recall, semantic consistency, and agent loop efficiency on domain-specific benchmarks.

**Evaluation framework:**

**1. Retrieval recall@k:**
 - Create ground-truth pairs: (query, relevant_documents)
 - For each query, count how many relevant docs appear in top-k retrieved results
 - Calculate recall = (relevant_docs_found / total_relevant_docs)
 - Target: >80% recall@5 for your domain

**2. Semantic consistency test:**
 - Query variations should retrieve the same document
 - Example: "What happened in Q4?" and "What was the outcome in October–December?" should both retrieve Q4 reports
 - Measure: percentage of query variations retrieving the same top result
 - Target: >90% consistency

**3. Agent loop efficiency:**
 - Run agents on test queries
 - Count average loops needed to answer
 - Measure context tokens consumed
 - Target: median of 2–3 loops, <500 tokens per query

**4. Domain adaptation:**
 - Test on supply chain queries, legal queries, customer support queries separately
 - Some embeddings excel at semantic understanding but fail on domain-specific terminology
 - Choose embeddings with domain-specific fine-tuning if available

**5. Latency at scale:**
 - Index 1M+ embeddings in Zilliz Cloud
 - Measure p95 query latency
 - Target: <100ms for single query, <500ms for agent loop (3 queries)

**Recommended test set:** Use MTEB benchmarks + your own domain queries. Include edge cases (misspellings, abbreviations, acronyms).

Poor embeddings are the #1 cause of agent loop failures. Invest time in evaluation with Zilliz Cloud.

**Related Resources:**
- [What is Zilliz Cloud](https://zilliz.com/what-is-zilliz-cloud)
- [Agentic RAG with Claude and LlamaIndex](https://zilliz.com/blog/agentic-rag-using-claude-3.5-sonnet-llamaindex-and-milvus)
- [Start free on Zilliz Cloud](https://cloud.zilliz.com/signup)