Algolia announces hybrid search engine with Search.io acquisition
Algolia, the developer of an API-First Search & Discovery Platform, has announced the acquisition of Search.io, whose flagship product is Neuralsearch – a vector search engine that uses hashing technology on top of vectors. Algolia will combine its keyword search and Search.io’s Neuralsearch into a single API.
“Our mission, vision and purpose is powering discovery. We’ve done this to date largely with keyword search. With the addition of the vector search engine from Search.io, we’re going to disrupt the search market significantly,” said Bernadette Nixon, chief executive officer, Algolia.
“We’ll be the only product on the market that combines keyword search with vector-based semantic and image search, along with vector-based recommendations. Vendor consolidation is back in vogue, and being able to get best in class capabilities from one provider is powerful in today’s economic climate.”
Algolia claims it will now more effectively surface the most accurate and relevant results for users, whether they use specific keywords or natural human expressions. It states any companies claim to offer some form of semantic search, however, these companies do not offer the capabilities of keyword search and vector-based semantic search in a single API cost-effectively, nor do they have the ability to scale.
With Search.io, Algolia can empower business users with a better way to manage the automation of unique and engaging end user experiences.
“We are delighted to be joining a world-class leader in search and discovery,” said Hamish Ogilvy, chief executive officer and co-founder, Search.io. "Delivering on the promise of AI search has traditionally required tremendous internal expertise and engineering resources to work effectively.
“Beyond delivering better search experiences, this must also be done reliably, fast and cost effectively. Algolia has led the world in delivering highly redundant, globally distributed instant search using more than 100 data centres worldwide. This global search distribution network combined with vector-based semantic search using extremely fast and efficient neural hash technology is an exciting and truly unique solution."