What does the AI do in Smart Search?

A common misconception is that Smart Search is just another smarter AI version of ‘traditional’ keyword-based search technology. 

That’s actually not true. 

Smart Search is optimized for questions asked in natural language. It’s a different type of search with an AI layer built-in. It is specifically designed for proposal professionals who need compliant and responsive answers to client questions. 

To give you great results, the question you type in the search box (or autofill by selecting it from a document) should be clear and concise. The underlying AI also needs to have sufficient context to be able to interpret the intent of the question. 

If you only type one word, or a phrase in quotation marks, or simply a file name – there are many possible interpretations and the results you get in Smart Search might not be what you expect. For these scenarios, it’s much better to use a Keyword Search which is intended to find precise matches. 

For Smart Search to work well for you, it needs context. And the clearer the question and its context, the better the matching answers will be in your Smart Search results. 

It’s also worth highlighting that while Smart Search does use AI to understand questions, it is still only a search capability and not an interactive AI Assistant. That’s what QPilot is for. If you have a question about your content or need help with accomplishing a task, then go for QPilot. If you are looking for the answer to a question, that’s exactly what Smart Search is for. 

You can check this article to understand which capability is best for different search scenarios