What Is Intelligent Search and How Does It Work?

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The amount of digital information available to us has become astronomical. Customers have more options and information to sift through than ever before. As a result, the ability to infer the goals of customers and users is critical in meeting their needs. In a world where intranet search powered by AI has become the norm, the bar for what is possible when searching a digital brand’s site is set high. Intelligent intranet search is quickly becoming a widespread method for keeping pace with the expectations of users whose options are limitless.

What Is Intelligent Search?

Intelligent search is an AI-powered search designed to understand a user’s goal and return results based on the inference of that goal. This requires going far beyond direct query matches. Intelligent search combines elements of semantic search and machine learning technology to construct a picture of the overall goal that a user may have when arriving at a website and conducting a search. For example, when a user searches for “key lime pie” on a baking website, a question arises: are they looking for ingredients, instructions, or a finished pie outright? The answer isn’t necessarily straightforward when relying entirely on a lexical intranet search method (the focus being keywords). Intelligent search has the best shot at taking into account the various signals that a customer has given to understand the intent of the search best.

User Benefits of Intelligent Search:

Intelligent search significantly elevates the user experience by accurately understanding and anticipating user needs. Here are some of the key benefits users can enjoy:

• Time Efficiency: By delivering more precise search results swiftly, intelligent search saves users valuable time that would otherwise be spent sifting through irrelevant results.
• Accuracy: The advanced algorithms employed in intelligent search ensure that the results displayed are more aligned with the user’s intent, thereby improving the accuracy of the search.
• Personalized Experience: By learning from past interactions, intelligent search provides suggestions, making the search personalization experience more engaging and user-friendly.
• Enhanced Discoverability: Users are exposed to a wider array of relevant content or products that they might not have encountered otherwise, enriching their interaction with the platform.

How Does Intelligent Search Work?

Intelligent search better understands the goals and intentions of customers by combining Natural Language Processing (NLP), machine learning, and semantic search. Both machine learning and NLP enable the ability to predict and create tailored results for each individual user. Semantic search learns from shopper behavior to encode products and queries in a shared vector space – sort of like the way groceries are organized in aisles and shelves in a physical store.

Using these technologies together creates an intelligent search experience that can infer beyond the queries input into the site search box, such as linking users to relevant content for research purposes or connecting them with specific product information they may need for a project.

Business Benefits of Intelligent Search:

Adopting intelligent intranet search is not only beneficial for users but also holds substantial value for businesses. Here’s how:

• Increased Engagement: With more relevant results and suggestions, users will likely interact more with the platform, increasing engagement rates.
• Higher Conversion Rates: By aligning website search results closely with user intent, there’s a higher probability of users taking desired actions, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up, or another conversion goal.
• Reduced Customer Support Load: With intelligent search empowering users to find the information they need effortlessly, the number of inquiries to customer support can be significantly reduced, allowing support teams to focus on more complex issues.
• Data Insights: The data harvested from user interactions with the intelligent search can provide invaluable insights into user behavior and preferences, which can be leveraged for better decision-making and strategy formulation.
• Competitive Advantage: In a digital landscape where user satisfaction is a key differentiator, having an intelligent intranet search system can provide a significant competitive edge.

What Makes Intelligent Search Important?

Intelligent intranet search is critical to creating more meaningful digital experiences. Customers have an increasing number of resources on the internet, which makes finding what they want all the more challenging. The sheer amount of information available impacts more than just customers, too. Support and customer service agents also feel the effects of accelerated digital transformation. There are more tickets and customer information to wade through, and being able to do so quickly is vital to maintaining the quality of service. Having intelligent intranet search solutions can greatly enhance both the customer’s ability to find what they are looking for and the support agent’s ability to provide information quickly.

Intelligent search augments the experience of both the customer and support agent by adding a layer of understanding and intent.

Interested in the full extent of what intelligent intranet search can do for your brand? Get in touch with us today for a demo.