AI Term 1 min read

Dot Product

What it measures: Combines both the angle and magnitude of vectors into a single similarity score.

When to use: Recommendation systems, when you want to consider both direction and strength of preferences.

Math insight: Rewards vectors that point in the same direction AND have high magnitudes.

Example: User preferences where both the type of content and the strength of preference matter.

Range: -∞ to +∞ (higher values = more similar)