
What (un)exactly do you mean by semantic search?
From The Stack Overflow Podcast by The Stack Overflow Podcast
May 5, 2026 · 29 min · Episode 944
About this episode
Ryan discusses semantic search and vector databases with Bryan O’Grady from Qdrant.
Ryan welcomes Bryan O’Grady, Head of Field Research and Solutions Architecture at Qdrant, to discuss the differences between traditional text search engines powered by Lucene and modern vector databases, when vector search’s exact-match needs work for things like logs and security analytics and when semantic search works for user-facing discovery and non-exact results, and how Qdrant is growing into video embeddings and local-agent contexts. Episode notes: Qdrant offers high-performance vector search at scale with any deployment model. Connect with Brian on LinkedIn or email the Qdrant team at support@qdrant.io . Congratulations to user Brad Larson for winning a Populist badge for their answer to Find the tangent of a point on a cubic bezier curve . See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
People in this episode
Host: Ryan
Guest: Bryan O’Grady
Topics covered
- semantic search
- vector databases
- text search engines
- logs
- security analytics
- user-facing discovery
- video embeddings
Keywords
- semantic search
- vector databases
- text search
- logs
- security analytics
- user discovery
- video embeddings
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Qdrant, Lucene
More episodes of The Stack Overflow Podcast
- Developers are emotionally attached to their tools · June 12, 2026 · 34 min
- When the cost of code approaches zero, what does engineering leadership look like? · June 11, 2026 · 34 min
- Creating checkpoints by gaslighting a Postgres database · June 9, 2026 · 35 min
- Making the OWASP top ten in the vibe code era · June 5, 2026 · 34 min
- What it takes to be a player in the international AI game · June 2, 2026 · 26 min
- The find out stage of AI is just supply chain and password protection · May 29, 2026 · 31 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Stack Overflow Podcast podcast page.