RAG Systems on OpenAI: Migrating from Assistants API to Responses API by August 2026

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) combines information retrieval with a language model so that answers draw on external data sources rather than only on training data. The approach operates in two stages: first retrieving relevant documents for a user's query, then passing that material to a generative model such as GPT to produce a grounded response. The article walks through an example of this process, from user query to search to augmented prompt. It also warns that OpenAI is shutting down the Assistants API on August 26, 2026, and recommends the Responses API and its built-in file_search tool for new RAG work. The underlying architecture of retrieval plus generation remains unchanged, even though the implementation path has shifted.
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