AI-Powered Search with Doug Turnbull and Trey Grainger [#133]

About this episode

Doug Turnbull and Trey Grainger discuss AI-Powered Search, exploring query understanding, domain modeling, and innovative search techniques.

Doug Turnbull and Trey Grainger join the Weaviate Podcast to discuss all things AI-Powered Search! The conversation kicks off with designing search experiences, not all search queries are the same! Sometimes the user knows exactly what they want (a product ID, a specific file), other times they're exploring a broad category, and other times they need to compare and contrast options. AI is now making it possible to dynamically construct UIs around search results, moving toward what Trey describes as a "Minority Report"-style future where visualizations adapt on the fly to the query and the data.From there, the discussion dives into query understanding and domain modeling. Doug and Trey break down how LLMs can classify queries against existing taxonomies (like NAICS codes or Google's product taxonomy), while Trey explains a multi-tier RAG approach, using the index itself as grounding for query interpretation before executing the final retrieval. The conversation moves into agentic search, exploring whether iterative LLM-driven search loops reduce the need for ever-better embedding models, or whether simple tools like BM25 and grep are sufficient when paired with strong…

People in this episode

Host: Weaviate

Guests: Doug Turnbull, Trey Grainger

Topics covered

• AI-Powered Search
• query understanding
• domain modeling
• LLMs
• agentic search
• wormhole vectors

Keywords

• AI
• search experience
• query classification
• RAG approach
• embedding models
• semantic vector spaces

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Weaviate, Google, NAICS

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