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Umbrella splitAI & AgentsGoogle Cloud

Vertex AI Vector Search Vector Search

Legacy names Vertex AI Vector Search, Vertex AI Vector Search (1.0), Vertex AI Vector Search 2.0, Vector Search 2.0, Vertex AI Matching Engine, Vertex Matching Engine

High-scale ScaNN vector similarity search (ANN) index service and AI-native Collection retrieval engine.

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Naming timeline

  1. Vertex AI Matching Engine

    · Google I/O 2021 (Preview; GA Sep 24, 2021)

    Launched in Preview on May 18, 2021 (as Vertex Matching Engine) and reached GA on September 24, 2021 as a high-scale ScaNN approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) vector similarity service.

  2. Vertex AI Vector Search & Vector Search 2.0

    · Google Cloud Next '23 (Vector Search 2.0 GA Mar 5, 2026)

    Renamed from Vertex AI Matching Engine to Vertex AI Vector Search at Google Cloud Next '23 (release note Sep 1, 2023); later introduced Vector Search 2.0 (GA March 5, 2026) with self-tuning Collections and Data Objects on vectorsearch.googleapis.com.

  3. Vector Search & Agent RetrievalCurrent name

    · Gemini Enterprise Launch (Release Notes Table Apr 22, 2026)

    Vertex AI Vector Search dropped the 'Vertex AI' prefix to become 'Vector Search', while Vertex AI Vector Search 2.0 was renamed to 'Agent Retrieval' (and enterprise search/RAG became 'Agent Search').

What happened to Vertex AI Vector Search?

Vertex AI Vector Search was split up, and this part of it is now Vector Search, with the latest change in October 2025 (Gemini Enterprise Launch (Release Notes Table Apr 22, 2026)). Earlier names covered by this entry also include Vertex AI Vector Search (1.0), Vertex AI Vector Search 2.0, Vector Search 2.0, Vertex AI Matching Engine, Vertex Matching Engine. High-scale ScaNN vector similarity search (ANN) index service and AI-native Collection retrieval engine. Only the customer-facing name changed; the underlying technical identifiers remain backward compatible.

Also known as

  • Agent Retrieval
  • Agent Retrieval on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform
  • Vector Search on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform
  • Vector Search 1.0
  • Agent Search
  • Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform Vector Search

Technical identifiers

Technical identifiers unchanged. Only the customer-facing product name changed; the APIs, CLI commands, IAM roles and Terraform resources below keep their legacy identifiers for backward compatibility.

REST / gRPC APIsaiplatform.googleapis.com vectorsearch.googleapis.com discoveryengine.googleapis.com
gcloud / CLI Commandsgcloud ai indexes gcloud ai index-endpoints gcloud vector-search collections
IAM Predefined Rolesroles/aiplatform.* roles/vectorsearch.* roles/discoveryengine.*
Terraform Resourcesgoogle_vertex_ai_index google_vertex_ai_index_endpoint google_discovery_engine_*

Vector Search 1.0 uses aiplatform.googleapis.com (gcloud ai indexes / index-endpoints, Python SDK MatchingEngineIndex); Agent Retrieval (formerly Vector Search 2.0) uses vectorsearch.googleapis.com (gcloud vector-search collections, roles/vectorsearch.*).

Notes & disambiguation

  • Per the April 22, 2026 Agent Platform release notes naming table and vertex-ai-name-changes, 'Vertex AI Vector Search' (1.0 ANN index-as-a-service on aiplatform.googleapis.com) became simply 'Vector Search' ('Vector Search on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform'), while 'Vertex AI Vector Search 2.0' (Collections and Data Objects storage/retrieval engine on vectorsearch.googleapis.com, GA March 5, 2026) was renamed to 'Agent Retrieval' ('Agent Retrieval on Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform').
  • Turnkey enterprise search and RAG grounding over unstructured documents and data stores is covered by 'Agent Search' (discoveryengine.googleapis.com), while corpus-based context augmentation on aiplatform.googleapis.com is covered by 'RAG Engine'.
  • In the Agent Platform Python SDK, Vector Search 1.0 classes retain legacy identifiers (MatchingEngineIndex and MatchingEngineIndexEndpoint), while Agent Retrieval (Vector Search 2.0) uses vectorsearch.googleapis.com, 'gcloud vector-search collections', and roles/vectorsearch.*.

Sources & official documentation

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