A quickly evolving search landscape, driven by the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the ever-expanding universe of data is creating challenges. For many organizations, there remains a daunting gap between the promise of AI-powered search and its practical implementation.

That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the launch of AI-Powered Search, a new book authored by industry veterans Trey Grainger, Doug Turnbull, and Max Irwin. Alongside the book, we’re unveiling the AI-Powered Search website and community —a dedicated hub of knowledge for search architects, AI developers, and tech leaders to collaborate, innovate, and accelerate the future of search.

Whether you’re building the next generation of search systems, embarking on a new AI initiative, or curious about integrating cutting-edge techniques like vector embeddings or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), the book, the site, and the community are here to guide you.

Why Now? Search Is at the Core of Innovation

Search isn’t just a feature—it’s the backbone of digital transformation across industries and the source of truth for modern AI systems, which need up-to-date and reliable data to deliver accurate, hallucination-free responses. From e-commerce platforms surfacing the perfect product to enterprise knowledge bases retrieving mission-critical insights, search is foundational to the user experience. Yet, scaling these systems and keeping them relevant has become more complex than ever.

“Search is one of the most critical, cross-functional technologies within any enterprise,” explains Grainger, lead author of the book and founder of Searchkernel, an AI search consultancy. “Search became commoditized – but smart search is not. Data scientists are developing new techniques to improve relevance across text, images, and multimodal media. The challenge is to incorporate these techniques at scale.”

Grainger began writing the book AI-Powered Search over five years ago while still Chief Algorithms Officer at Lucidworks. “At that time, many people were still thinking about search relevance in terms of dictionaries, vocabularies, and taxonomies. But they grow stale quickly. Leveraging AI-powered search approaches — utilizing machine learning on domain data and user behavioral insights — enables continuously improving the intelligence of search-based applications instead of relying on constant manual relevance tuning.” 

What’s in the Book? A Treasure Chest for Modern Search

AI-Powered Search is a comprehensive guide that bridges the gap between traditional search methods and advanced AI techniques. Released by Manning Publications, the book is available through Manning and all major book sellers, including Amazon.

The book is packed with practical insights and over 200 executable code examples, empowering developers and architects to:

• Understand and implement vector embeddings for semantic search.
• Experiment with multimodal and hybrid search techniques.
• Explore retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and learning-to-rank models.
• Leverage user behavior insights to automate relevance improvements.

For search professionals and machine learning practitioners, the book serves as a short cut to cutting-edge relevance techniques.

“The book is a treasure map. Now you have decades of semantic search knowledge at your fingertips,”  said Mark Moyou, senior data scientist at NVIDIA.

Because of Manning’s early access program (MEAP), more than 3000 copies were sold in early release, and lessons learned are helping to drive innovation. “This book helped me jump start my entire journey towards semantic search, including the beginning of my startup,” said Hamza Farooq, founder of Traversaal.ai. 

An AI Knowledge Lbrary

Grainger understands that the book is the beginning of the AI Powered Search journey – not the end. “We want to continue the conversation,” he said. And to do so, he created a community-driven platform and public resource center for continued knowledge sharing. “There are many smart people focused at the intersection of Search and AI, but their knowledge is scattered and often hard to find,” he explained. “The site is not meant to supplant the other sources out there –– but to act as an appendix for the book that pulls together the latest and best from the entire community.”

Search doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s a collaborative effort requiring input from data scientists, developers, architects, and executives. 

A Dynamic AI Community

The AI-Powered Search online community is designed to bring these voices together. You can find search and AI thought leaders like OpenSearch, OpenSource Connections, Bonsai, and “How AI Is Built” offering podcasts, articles, and case studies on the site.

At AIPoweredSearch.com, you’ll find:

• Educational Materials: Research, articles, and case studies. 
• Training Resources: Step-by-step guides and tutorials for professionals at all levels.
• Community Portal: A space for innovators to connect, collaborate, and share insights.

Opportunities for AI Vendors and Other Industry Leaders 

As search evolves, new tools and platforms will play an integral role in enabling developers and enterprises to deploy next-generation solutions. AI-Powered Search and its companion community align with this mission by providing vendors an opportunity to reach a dynamic community. 

1. Education and Onboarding: The book and community offer foundational resources for you to showcase your technologies and expertise.
2. Adoption of Best Practices: By curating case studies and benchmarks, the platform ensures that professionals know how to implement and optimize tools like Solr, OpenSearch, and other search engines, vector databases, and AI models. 
3. Collaboration Opportunities: The community serves as a meeting ground for practitioners and vendors to discuss, collaborate, and show off their latest research and technical advances.

Join Us in Revolutionizing Search

The launch of AI-Powered Search isn’t just a milestone—it’s a movement. By combining a world-class resource like the book with an active online community, we’re creating a space where knowledge flows freely, ideas flourish, and innovation accelerates.

Whether you’re building smarter search systems, exploring AI’s potential, or simply looking to stay ahead of the curve, we welcome you here to the AI-Powered Search Community. This is your chance to be part of the future. Let’s shape the next generation of search together!