Information retrieval (IR) has a wide range of applications, primarily focused on helping users find relevant information from large datasets. Common applications include search engines (like Google), where users retrieve web pages based on search queries.
IR is also used in digital libraries, academic research databases, recommendation systems, and e-commerce platforms. For instance, in e-commerce, IR helps retrieve relevant products based on user queries, improving the shopping experience.
Other applications include image and video search, voice assistants, and question-answering systems, where IR techniques help users find relevant answers or media by processing natural language queries.