Semantic Search with iFinder
What Is Semantic Search?
Semantic Search: Find What Users Mean
Information is rarely stored using the exact terminology employees use in their searches. Different departments may use different terminology, abbreviations, and wording. With iFinder, users can phrase their query just as they would ask a colleague:
- “How do I report that a colleague is ill?”
- “Where can I find the latest travel expenses policy?”
- “What amount of damage was reported for the incident?”
Semantic search takes meaning and context into account. As a result, it can find relevant content even when the documents use different wording.
Semantic Search in Everyday Work
Natural-language question: “How do I report that a colleague is ill?”
iFinder recognizes: Employees, sick leave, and the reporting process
Possible results:
- "Instructions for reporting an employee’s sick leave"
- "Information about medical certificates"
- "Policies on sickness-related absences"
- "Responsibilities and internal procedures"
iFinder can find the relevant documents even if they do not contain the exact phrase “report that a colleague is ill".
iFinder: One Search for Meaning and Precision
A purely keyword-based search mainly finds identical words. A purely semantic search, by contrast, may struggle with unique strings such as invoice numbers, case references, or technical product codes.
iFinder combines both approaches and enhances them with sophisticated linguistic processing to deliver the results employees need.
Spend Less Time Searching. Act Faster.
Semantic search with iFinder helps organizations make better use of their existing knowledge:
- Find information across systems and departments
- Reach the right content even when different specialist terms are used
- Minimize unsuccessful searches and duplicated work
- Make policies, processes, and experiential knowledge easier to access
- Onboard new employees more quickly
- Base decisions and actions on verifiable information
Precise Search Results Provide the Knowledge Foundation for Reliable AI Answers
iFinder - Using semantic and hybrid search, iFinder finds and prioritizes relevant content, respects existing access permissions, and provides the corresponding sources and text passages.
iAssistant - Based on this content, iAssistant answers questions, summarizes information, and identifies the sources used. However, the quality of its answers depends to a large extent on whether the correct and authorized content has been found beforehand.
Powerful enterprise AI search therefore provides the foundation for reliable RAG and AI applications.
⭐FAQ
Traditional full-text search is particularly effective at finding exact terms, numbers, and character strings. Semantic search, by contrast, helps with natural-language questions and varying terminology. iFinder combines both approaches, allowing users to benefit from meaning-based retrieval and exact matching depending on the type of query.
A single general term can have many different meanings and return a large number of results. Additional details such as a person, location, period, process, or the type of information required help the search engine interpret the user’s intent and prioritize more relevant results.
No. Semantic search finds, prioritizes, and makes relevant content accessible. A chatbot or AI assistant, by contrast, formulates answers. Semantic search can provide the foundation for an AI assistant by supplying the relevant and authorized information required to generate reliable answers.
Yes. iFinder respects the permissions of the connected data sources. Users only receive search results from content they are authorized to access. The same applies to AI-generated answers based on those search results.
