Semantic search
Finding things by what you mean, not the exact words you type.
Old-style search matches keywords: if the words don't match, you get nothing. Semantic search uses embeddings to match meaning, so "rainy day activities for toddlers" can find a page titled "indoor play ideas for little ones".
How it works
- 01Your search and all the documents are turned into embeddings.
- 02The search compares meanings and finds the closest matches.
- 03Results are ranked by how close they are in meaning, not just by matching words.
A librarian instead of a card catalogue
An old card catalogue only finds a book if you know its exact title. A good librarian hears "something to calm a toddler at bedtime" and hands you three books with completely different titles. Semantic search is the librarian. It understands what you're looking for, even when you can't remember the words.
Where you'll use it
That one recipe
Search your saved notes for "the quick lentil thing" and actually find it.
Inbox and drive search
Find the client email about the price change without remembering the subject line.
Shopping
"Warm shoes for a toddler who hates socks" finds the right products.
Your nap-time experiment
See semantic search in action with a question that's hard to keyword-search.
I'm looking for indoor activities for a rainy afternoon with a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old, using things we already have at home, with almost no cleanup. Give me 6 ideas. Then show me 3 different search phrases I could type into Google or Pinterest to find more ideas like these, using different words that mean the same thing.