Episode 1: The hype and sensibility of Artificial Intelligence in Search | Ben Tilley, Funnelback

On our very first podcast (episode 1 YEAH!!!), Virgil is joined by Ben Tilley from Funnelback, an Australian-based search company, to break through all the hype around the use of artificial intelligence in search and talk about real world implementations and pitfalls.

Listening to this discussion, you will discover that implementing AI in search is not all that easy (shocker!!) and still requires you to follow good content and search practices. Where AI has many practical applications in search, effort is still needed and fundamentals need to be followed. In the end, AI cannot fix your search if your content still sucks.

There is reason to hope, good AI can be very helpful. According to Ben, "Being able to use some form of natural language processing to extract information out of your written text and turn that back into structure is a great way you can start to improve search."

Throughout this episode, Virgil and Ben will share the challenges you will face while giving you thoughts on how you can get your content and search ready to be able to use AI to its full potential.

Resources discussed:

• https://www.wolframalpha.com/ - one of the first search engines to use AI
• https://www.westpac.com.au/ - example organization using AI in their search

Helpful articles from Funnelback:

• https://www.funnelback.com/blog/artificial-intelligence-why-the-farmer-killed-the-fox
• https://www.funnelback.com/blog/intelligent-question-answering
• https://www.funnelback.com/blog/is-the-future-of-search-proactive