Product Discovery with AI Vector Search
Language is often ambiguous and fuzzy. Two words can mean the same thing (synonyms) or the same word can have multiple meanings (polysems). In English for example, “fantastic” and “awesome” can sometimes be synonymous, but “awesome” can also mean many different things — inspiring, daunting, divine, or even plentiful.
Developers are flocking to vector search to make their applications more adaptive to their users. As the term search implies, vector search is for finding and comparing objects using a concept known as vectors. Put simply, it helps you find similarity between objects, allowing you to find complex, contextually-aware relationships within your data. It’s a technology that sits behind and powers next-gen search-related applications.
Vector search is an AI-powered search feature in modern data platforms, such as vector databases, that helps users build more flexible applications. No longer are you limited to basic keyword searching; instead, you can find semantically similar information across any kind of digital media.
Vector search gives a range of new capabilities to databases and the applications that use them. In a nutshell, vector search helps users find more contextually-aware matches within a large collection of information (aka corpus). The idea of closeness is important–vector search statistically groups items together to show how similar or related they are. This applies across much more than just text, though many of our examples are text-based to help compare to traditional search systems.
Superpowered vs. Traditional Search
The various tradeoffs needed to search in complex environments successfully can be avoided with vector search. However, the tradeoff will need a service-level API (e.g., OpenAI) with adequate resources to help you interface applications to an LLM. You will also have choices and limitations depending on the LLM sitting behind your vector search system.
Benefits of Search as a Service
In a time when 43% of website visitors go immediately to the search box, a great on-site search experience translates to better engagement and more conversions.
Not only does site search quickly connect users to their needs, it also helps the business grow by boosting conversion rates and improving customer retention. But the best search as a service solutions deliver much more than just a search bar. They enable discovery, connecting visitors to things they didn’t even know they needed yet.
Agility
Search as a service solutions create a more streamlined operational environment. The search provider is responsible for the nitty gritty of keeping things running, so once it is implemented, internal teams don’t have to pour hours into troubleshooting, testing, resolving logistical issues, or creating new features. In fact, search as a service empowers the business with self-service capabilities, so it can devote more time to achieving organizational objectives and less time to fine-tuning search.
Cost of Ownership/Operations
With search as a service, companies take on less of the infrastructure and operational cost. They don’t have to employ dedicated operations teams for the search tool, which simplifies the tech stack and accelerates the pace at which work is done. These factors create a fundamentally better experience for developers.
Speed
Rapid speed is essential to a great search experience. Search as a service relies on reliable infrastructure, such as a distributed search network, to deliver lightning-fast results at scale, even as the business grows and customer needs change. Search as a service allows websites to handle more complex search needs with minimal development investment, like alternate-language searches, typo tolerance, personalization, and more.
Reliability and Scalability
As the business grows, the search functionality must grow and evolve along with it. In-house search solutions require developers to manage system backups and resolve issues of network latency, downed servers, and/or unresponsive search. Search as a service, on the other hand, allows the business to outsource infrastructure to support reliability and scalability to third-party experts.
Multi-Channel Uses
Search as a service also allows organizations to power multiple channels with a single search solution, rather than building new solutions for every channel. Thus, users can get quick, relevant information regardless of which search channel they interact with, including desktop web, mobile web, mobile application, and voice.
Scope
Most companies have multiple divisions, properties and silos of data on their own website. A good search as a service tool can easily span all of that to give the user a unified view of all your content, products and services in an intuitive, easy to understand interface.
Analytics
One of the key benefits of competitive search as a service solutions is their ability to collect user behavior and enable site owners to act on this data. Site search analytics provides visibility into the performance of various pages and content, uncovering which resources are the most influential and why. Analytics also gives insight into conversions, keywords, queries, the effectiveness of CTRs, and more. This information, provided in an intuitive dashboard from a search as a service provider, helps inform larger decisions about product and marketing strategies. Often, companies can discover pockets of unmet needs that represent significant business opportunities.
Customization & Flexibility
With a strong search as a service provider, companies can let business goals and business specific needs drive the configuration of search and the search UI design. Customization ensures the search is best matched to the business case and challenges. Companies can tweak ranking factors, prioritization, and other elements to continually improve the search tool to meet customers’ needs.
Personalization
Personalization is the future of search. Search as a service providers have data, analytics, and infrastructure to support personalization at scale in a way that in-house solutions and generic search plugins often can’t.
The more users feel that search results cater to their needs, the more opportunities there are to cross-sell and up-sell with related content and products. Organizations can simultaneously optimize for multiple languages, as opposed to building in one and incrementally building in others one at a time. They can also optimize for variations, plural and singular cases, and other relevant factors to deliver relevant results, every time.
Visual Design
When you build your own search function, you also have to invest in the UX and visual design of the tool. With search as a service, the search provider offers visual design and templates that work seamlessly with your site. Within the tool, you can tweak these visuals and test different graphic elements to land on the most-engaging visual layout. You can choose from different design elements that interplay with your search, like pagination, filters, and facets, to ensure customers have an intuitive and frictionless experience.
Functionality
Efficiency is the result of effective functionality. Search as a service providers invest heavily in back-end functionality—everything from timely indexing to fast responses to querying to federated search—so you can focus on tweaking and optimizing your own search results. While default CMS or e-commerce platform search results are general, often unprioritized, lists, optimized search as a service solutions provide highly relevant, tailored results for each site visitor.