How AI document analysis actually works

The pipeline

1. Parse — extract text from the PDF (or OCR if scanned).
2. Chunk — split into 500–1000 token pieces.
3. Embed — convert chunks to vectors.
4. Reason — LLM reads chunks and produces structured output.

Why some PDFs fail

• Scanned PDFs without OCR (no extractable text).
• Tables with merged cells.
• Multi-column legal documents.

When chunking matters

For 100+ page documents, the model can’t see everything at once. A retrieval step finds the most relevant chunks per question.

Privacy

Best-in-class tools process files in-memory, never persist the raw content, and store only the structured AI output.