Options for powerful Search? (AI, Natural Language etc...)

[EvanGR]

Hello,

I am looking for options to add a powerful search engine in my store.
By powerful, I mean:

- Natural language support, understanding synonyms, detecting typos etc...
- Realtime suggestions as you type
- AI integration, with maybe a discussion style search (e.g. user types: "I am looking for something that will help me do X")

I am not looking for a pre-made solution, probably doesn't exist. I just want pointers and suggestions. I am willing to get my hands dirty with code.

Thanks!

[PRO]

I used to have something like this on my site.

I created an administrator component with JoomlaComponentCreator
I would store a column of keywords (triggers) , and then a column of custom results.

Then on the frontend. I would check for keyword= in the url. Then if search was true, I would then run through the keyword column in the database, if there was a match, it would display the custom results via links.

I would do misspellings etc.

1 thing I did with it was, I downloaded like a years worth of google analytics page views, and would look at just the search result pages, and the use keywords. If I saw synonyms , I would fix it with the custom result links.

It is a lot of work to code this, but It could end up paying off for you.

[balai]

I think Elastic Search a good option.
Also seems like there is a Joomla extension that possibly gets you covered.
https://www.joomlageek.com/product/component-geek-elasticsearch

[stAn99]

there is a solution for Virtuemart using elastic which could also support natural language:

https://www.searchready.cz/en/

the Search Ready provides:
- frontend styling (widget)
- hosted elastic at their premises
- xml export of your products to their systems

your other options are:
- create the search frontend and backend with your own hosted elastic database
- have own AI server hosted
- use a 3rd party AI provider like openai or similar

all is a matter of performance vs price. for OpenAI i don't think your customers would want to wait 10 seconds for a reply during the busy time, so you might want to use multiple solutions at once.

the "Search Ready" is being used here for example: https://www.kolo-park.cz
but i don't think it yet implements "natural language" there.


within my own systems (com_rupsearch - part of "RuposTel One Page Checkout" ) i am very close to use the OpenAI Assistant API (or possibly Gemini) for the natural language search, but i would need a client that would be willing to pay for such implementation:
- create csv export for OpenAI Assistant (plus update script, etc... )
- create instructions for the Assistant
- send customer's query to assistant
- parse the response and return the product IDs to frontend search system

i don't think it would make sense to add "results during typing" (this woudl be very expensive in matters of performance or cost) while it might be possible to provide rather "search hints"

best regards, stan