The Future of Enterprise Search

Search is witnessing interesting developments and the stupendous rate at which opportunities in the field are developing only indicates that the future holds unlimited possibilities. The rapidly growing and evolving technology can be exciting to someone who is new to this field. After all, it has come a long way from the days of yore when keywords and phrases were the only way to fetch results. Today, we have semantics – a revolutionary technology that still has a lot to offer – that has helped to not just make the process faster and easier, but also much more accurate and relevant.

Enterprise Search at Present

The introduction of path-breaking technology like semantics, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence has paved the way for the emergence of the concept of enterprise search, with state-of-the-art new age enterprise search tools like 3RDi Enterprise, Commvault, Copernic and many more, designed specifically to help enterprises browse through and derive insights from the unsurmountable volumes of organizational data, most of which is unstructured. These tools are built using enterprise search engines like Solr. It helps to note that previously, it was next to impossible to decipher what’s hidden inside unstructured data, as it was beyond the scope of traditional keyword based approach. However, all this has changed now and it would be exciting to peek into the future to know what’s in store.

What the Future Holds

A study of the trends reveals that the future indeed has interesting things in store! In other words, the future of enterprise search will be all about making the experience more meaningful, fruitful and relevant for the user. In other words, the future will be about fetching accurate results without the user having to take the efforts to type in keywords. It also means, opening doors to methods that we can only dream of right now.

a] Instant Click n Search – Visual Search

The future is moving towards ‘queryless search’, which means fetching results without the need for the user to type in keywords. Some ecommerce apps have started adapting this technology wherein all you need to do is click a picture with the ‘click photo’ feature within the app and voila! You shall be able to see an entire list of products in the store that are exactly similar to the subject of your photograph. Sounds great, isn’t it? Well, this is nothing but visual search at work and the future will witness its increased scope and application. After all, so many times it happens that we just can’t find words to describe what we want or are looking for, which can be a challenge. The future will see us overcoming this challenge.

b] Speak to the Enterprise Search Tool – Voice Search

Morgan Stanley estimates that by 2020 there will be more than 75 billion devices connected to the Internet, and this will be made possible by the growth of Internet of Things (IoT). Voice search has witnessed significant success in our times, having reached the 95% accuracy threshold, and the future only holds a lot more exciting possibilities. Google Home and Amazon Echo are good examples of the advent of this new technology into our homes and in our lives. However, it is long before this technology is adapted by enterprise search tools and we are looking forward to that day, don’t you agree? Imagine being able to draw accurate insights from a mass of data just by speaking to the tool! Could we ask for more?

c] A Dedicated Tool for Every Domain – Vertical Search

Heard of the term ‘targeted search’, haven’t you? Well, vertical search will be all about giving it an all new dimension. It will be all about enhanced user experience that is more targeted and streamlined, say experts. So, instead of people from all domains using the same tool, it will be about different tools built to cater to different niche domains. This can be seen to some extent with the domain specific vocabulary available with new age platforms like 3RDi Enterprise that come with built-in vocabulary set dedicated to different domains. In other words, it is all about offering a customized user experience.

The Final Word

There are limitless possibilities that the future holds with enterprise search engines like Solr promising more advanced features in future. So it’s important that the enterprises learn about them and take steps to implement them. This will help them to create an enriched user experience and make them stay ahead of the game.