Context architecture is replacing RAG as agentic AI pushes enterprise retrieval to its limits

Redis built its name as the caching layer that kept web applications from collapsing under load. The problem it is targeting now has the same structure but is harder to solve: production AI agents failing not because the models are wrong, but because the data underneath them is scattered, stale and structured for humans rather than machines. Retrieval pipelines built for single queries cannot absorb the volume agents generate.The gap Redis is targeting is structural: agents make orders of magnitude more data requests than human users, but most retrieval layers were built for the human-scale problem. Redis Iris, launched Monday, is the company's answer: a context and memory platform that sits between an agent and the data it needs to act. The platform combines real-time data ingestion, a se