Breaktime Tech Talks

Ep54: Spring AI Integrations + Real-World RAG Challenges

Hear my latest hands-on experiences and lessons learned from the world of AI, graph databases, and developer tooling.

What’s Inside:

  • The difference between sparse and dense vectors, and how Neo4j handles them in real-world scenarios.
  • First impressions and practical tips on integrating Spring AI MCP with Neo4j’s MCP servers—including what worked, what didn’t, and how to piece together documentation from multiple sources.
  • Working with Pinecone and Neo4j for vector RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and graph RAG, plus the challenges of mapping results back to Java entities.
  • Reflections on the limitations of keyword search versus the power of contextual, conversational AI queries—using a book recommendation system demo.
  • Highlights from the article “Your RAG Pipeline is Lying with Confidence—Here’s How I Gave It a Brain with Neo4j”, including strategies for smarter chunking, avoiding semantic drift, and improving retrieval accuracy.

Links & Resources:

  • Neo4j MCP Cypher server repository
  • Spring AI MCP client
  • Your RAG Pipeline is Lying with Confidence
  • Jennifer’s Goodreads demo app

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