For most businesses, RAG is the right starting point. It keeps your information current (update the documents, not the model), it's cheaper, and it lets the model cite sources. It's how you build a support bot that answers from your actual help center.
Fine-tuning earns its cost when you need a consistent voice, a specialized format, or a narrow task done the same way every time, and you have enough good examples to teach it. Many production systems use RAG for the facts and light fine-tuning for the tone.
Updated July 2026
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