Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Industry: An Interview Study on Use Cases, Requirements, Challenges, and Evaluation

Lorenz Brehme, Benedikt Dornauer, Thomas Ströhle, Maximilian Ehrhart, Ruth Breu

2025

Abstract

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is a well-established and rapidly evolving field within AI that enhances the outputs of large language models by integrating relevant information retrieved from external knowledge sources. While industry adoption of RAG is now beginning, there is a significant lack of research on its practical application in industrial contexts. To address this gap, we conducted a semi-structured interview study with 13 industry practitioners to explore the current state of RAG adoption in real-world settings. Our study investigates how companies apply RAG in practice, providing (1) an overview of industry use cases, (2) a consolidated list of system requirements, (3) key challenges and lessons learned from practical experiences, and (4) an analysis of current industry evaluation methods. Our main findings show that current RAG applications are mostly limited to domain-specific QA tasks, with systems still in prototype stages; industry requirements focus primarily on data protection, security, and quality, while issues such as ethics, bias, and scalability receive less attention; data preprocessing remains a key challenge, and system evaluation is predominantly conducted by humans rather than automated methods.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Brehme L., Dornauer B., Ströhle T., Ehrhart M. and Breu R. (2025). Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Industry: An Interview Study on Use Cases, Requirements, Challenges, and Evaluation. In Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management - Volume 1: KDIR; ISBN , SciTePress, pages 110-122. DOI: 10.5220/0013739500004000

in Bibtex Style

@conference{kdir25,
author={Lorenz Brehme and Benedikt Dornauer and Thomas Ströhle and Maximilian Ehrhart and Ruth Breu},
title={Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Industry: An Interview Study on Use Cases, Requirements, Challenges, and Evaluation},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management - Volume 1: KDIR},
year={2025},
pages={110-122},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0013739500004000},
isbn={},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF

JO - Proceedings of the 17th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management - Volume 1: KDIR
TI - Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Industry: An Interview Study on Use Cases, Requirements, Challenges, and Evaluation
SN -
AU - Brehme L.
AU - Dornauer B.
AU - Ströhle T.
AU - Ehrhart M.
AU - Breu R.
PY - 2025
SP - 110
EP - 122
DO - 10.5220/0013739500004000
PB - SciTePress