#277 - RAG: The Only AI Skill Web Devs Need to Learn in 2026

Develop Yourself

I thought Ben was a troll when he slid into my DMs after a LinkedIn argument. Turns out, he’s building some of the most practical AI systems I’ve seen. In this episode, we talk about how that disagreement turned into a friendship—and why Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) might be the skill every developer needs in 2026.

Connect with Ben here

Check out Lobi Software here

Finally - if you want to go deeper with RAG, I have a tutorial I made just for you: https://parsity.io/ai-with-rag

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Chapter

1. Meet Ben Johnson and the RAG Agenda (00:00:00)

2. From Audio and Film to Software (00:03:16)

3. Bootcamps, Mentors, and Learning Obsession (00:06:20)

4. Why RAG Clicks for Enterprises (00:10:05)

5. Healthcare Use Case and Beyond (00:13:12)

6. Naive RAG vs Enterprise RAG (00:16:20)

7. RAG Zero-to-One: Embeddings and Vectors (00:19:30)

8. Real-World Example: Influencer Discovery (00:23:20)

9. Tech Stack Choices and Vector Databases (00:26:30)

10. Lowering the Learning Curve and Build vs Buy (00:30:00)

11. Selling AI: From Problem to Proof (00:33:10)