How does AI-powered search work and why your business needs it

60% of customers will abandon your website if they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly.

Customers expect immediate, relevant results, and site search is becoming more critical than ever.?

In the past, text entered in a search box produced similar results for most users. Now, developments in AI have made it possible to produce more relevant search results that are adjusted in real time based on factors like browsing history, the intent commonly associated with the words used, and high-performing content from similar searches, etc.

But what, exactly, does AI-powered site search mean? Is it the same as intelligent search? And why is it important for businesses to pay attention??

What is AI-Powered Site Search?

Before discussing AI-powered site search, it's important to understand what a site search itself is. Site search is a tool that allows users to search for information within a specific website by typing keywords into a search bar. Traditionally, site searches rely on keyword matching, which often results in generic and irrelevant results. In contrast, with AI-powered site search, the platform learns from data on users to automatically generate the most accurate and relevant search experiences. This learning, done in real-time, leads to the tuning of results in the background as the person searches. AI search is able to understand context, intent, synonyms, and incorrect spellings.

A great example of AI-powered site search is Pinterest, which uses visual search technology. When a user uploads or clicks on an image, Pinterest's system analyzes the image, along with the elements within it, like objects, and patterns, and searches for similar content across its platform, providing personalized and highly relevant results based on the user's visual preferences.?

How Does AI-Powered Search Work?

AI-powered search engines function by using a combination of sophisticated technologies to interpret, process, and return relevant search results. This is how they work:

1. Data Collection and Indexing: The first step in AI-powered search is similar to traditional search engines: data collection. The system crawls and indexes website content, structuring it in a way that makes it searchable. However, in AI-powered search, this step is enhanced by machine learning algorithms, which not only store data but learn patterns from user interactions.?
2. Natural Language Processing (NLP): AI search engines use NLP to better understand and interpret user queries. Rather than relying on simple keyword matching, NLP allows the search engine to comprehend the intent behind the search. For example, in a website like eBay, when users type in “affordable wireless headphones for working out,” an AI-powered search engine doesn't just look for the exact keywords "affordable" or "wireless headphones." It interprets the entire sentence, understanding the context around “working out” and surfaces results that meet the specific need for workout-appropriate wireless headphones.
3. Query Parsing: Once the query is received, the AI-powered search engine parses it into its most critical components using semantic search algorithms. These algorithms analyze the relationships between words, allowing the system to understand the query more deeply.?
4. Ranking and Relevance Algorithms: After parsing the query, the search engine ranks the most relevant results using machine learning-based ranking algorithms. These algorithms consider various factors, including user behavior, past interactions, click-through rates, and content quality. They prioritize content based on how well it matches the user’s intent.?
5. Learning from Behavior (Reinforcement Learning): AI-powered search engines continuously improve by learning from user interactions through reinforcement learning. Every time a user clicks on a search result, browses a page, or returns to modify their query, the search engine logs these actions. Over time, these systems learn which types of content best satisfy specific queries, adjusting the weight and priority of results accordingly.
6. Contextual Search and Personalization: AI-powered search doesn’t operate in isolation of the user’s environment. It factors in data such as location, device type, and even time of day to return more tailored results. An excellent example of this is Google’s search engine, which modifies its results based on the user's location.

Elasticsearch vs. AI-Powered Search

While both Elasticsearch and AI-powered search enhance search functionality, they serve different purposes and have distinct strengths. Elasticsearch excels in scalability and speed, making it ideal for high-performance keyword-based searches and full-text querying across large datasets. However, as user expectations evolve, AI-powered search engines are becoming essential for handling more complex, conversational, and ambiguous queries.

The Power of Elasticsearch

Elasticsearch is often chosen for its scalability and speed, particularly when it comes to performing traditional keyword searches. However, it’s more than just an exact-match engine. Elasticsearch incorporates useful features like:

• Fuzzy search for near matches
• Synonym matching to recognize related terms
• Stemming to handle different word forms (e.g., “run” and “running”)

These capabilities allow Elasticsearch to handle minor variations in user queries effectively. That said, while it is adept at finding relevant results based on these techniques, it still doesn’t interpret intent in the same way AI-powered models do. This is where the line is drawn between Elasticsearch’s feature-rich querying capabilities and the advanced understanding AI search engines bring to the table.

AI-Powered Search’s Edge in Understanding

In contrast, AI-powered search engines specialize in understanding user intent and the context behind queries, thanks to advanced technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP) and deep learning. These engines excel when queries are conversational or ambiguous, providing more relevant and personalized results by interpreting meaning rather than relying solely on keyword matches.

Instead of exact matches, AI-powered systems are designed to continuously learn from user behavior and adapt to emerging patterns, making them especially useful for websites where personalization and relevance are critical to the user experience.

Can They Work Together?

Yes! Elasticsearch and AI-powered search don’t have to be competitors — many systems benefit from a hybrid approach. Elasticsearch can be used to manage the indexing and fast retrieval of documents, while AI-powered models (such as BERT or GPT) layer on top to add contextual understanding and improve the relevance of search results. This hybrid approach allows businesses to take advantage of Elasticsearch’s speed and scalability while leveraging AI’s ability to interpret more complex queries.

For example, an e-commerce platform might use Elasticsearch to quickly retrieve product information, while an AI model refines the results based on the user’s previous behavior or inferred preferences.

Choosing the Right Approach for Your Business

While AI-powered search is ideal for improving user engagement through personalized and contextually relevant results, Elasticsearch remains a strong choice for use cases that require exact matches and blazing-fast retrieval. In applications where speed is critical—such as in high-frequency data searches—Elasticsearch’s straightforward querying can outperform more resource-intensive AI-driven systems.

Types of AI Search: Semantic, Conversational, Voice, and Visual Search

1. Semantic Search

Imagine searching for "best cybersecurity practices" today. An AI-powered search engine, using semantic search, would immediately provide you with the most up-to-date methods for protecting against current cyber threats, such as those related to ransomware attacks or AI-based hacking attempts. You wouldn’t need to specify “2024” or mention any new trends in cybersecurity.?

In the past, this search would have returned general articles on cybersecurity basics. But now, through semantic search, AI understands not just the keywords but the intent behind the query. It learns from industry trends, user behavior, and emerging risks, ensuring the results are timely and relevant. This is made possible by Natural Language Processing and machine learning.

2. Conversational Search

Conversational search is designed to understand and engage in human-like interactions with users. It uses AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s BERT, which enable the search engine to respond to natural language questions in a conversational manner. Unlike traditional searches, where users must adapt their language to suit the search engine, conversational search allows them to ask questions as if they were talking to a human.

For example, Google Assistant allows users to search for information like "What's the weather like in San Francisco?" or "How many calories are in an apple?" and receive an immediate spoken or written response, simulating a back-and-forth dialogue.

3. Voice Search

With the rise of virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, voice search has become increasingly popular. Voice search relies heavily on natural language processing and speech recognition to interpret spoken queries. One of the key challenges of voice search is understanding speech patterns, accents, and natural language variations, but advancements in NLP and machine learning have significantly improved its accuracy.

For example, when a user asks Siri to "Find the nearest coffee shop," the AI must not only recognize the spoken words but also understand the context (location) and intent (find coffee shops nearby).

4. Visual Search

Visual search is revolutionizing how users interact with the web by allowing them to search using images instead of text. This is particularly useful for e-commerce and social media platforms like Pinterest and Google Lens, where users can search for visually similar items by simply uploading or clicking on an image.?

Ready to Transform Your Website? Ralabs Can Help

AI-powered search engines have become essential tools for delivering fast, relevant, and personalized results, whether for e-commerce, content-heavy sites, or applications that rely on user interactions. Implementing this technology can significantly enhance your website’s user experience, improve engagement, and drive conversions. At Ralabs, we specialize in creating custom AI-powered search solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of your business.

Let’s get started — reach out to us to explore how we can implement an AI-powered search solution for your site. We’re here to help you optimize your digital presence and stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape.