AI-powered search is everywhere right now. Every search vendor claims their AI will transform your conversion rates. Some of it's genuine, some of it's marketing fluff dressed up as innovation. Let's talk about what actually works.

What "AI Search" Usually Means

When vendors say "AI search," they're typically talking about a few things:

Natural Language Processing

Understanding that "blue running shoes under £100" means the same as searching "shoes" and then filtering. Good NLP means customers can search how they naturally speak or type.

Semantic Understanding

Knowing that "trainers" and "sneakers" are basically the same thing. Or that someone searching for "gift for dad" probably wants something different than someone searching for "men's accessories."

Personalisation

Showing different results based on what we know about the customer—their browsing history, past purchases, location, and so on.

What Actually Improves Conversions

After implementing search improvements for dozens of stores, here's what consistently moves the needle:

High-Impact Improvements:

trending_upTypo tolerance: Users make mistakes. Good search handles them.
trending_upSynonym handling: Map your products to how customers actually describe them.
trending_upSpeed: Results need to appear instantly. Anything over 200ms feels slow.
trending_upMobile-first design: Most searches happen on phones now.

Building Search That Works

We build custom search solutions that combine fast indexing, intelligent ranking, and natural language understanding. The key is tailoring the search behaviour to your specific catalogue and customer expectations.

The built-in Shopify search has improved, but for stores with large catalogues or complex filtering needs, a custom search implementation delivers significantly better results—and conversion rates.

What Doesn't Work (Yet)

Fully conversational search—where customers can ask complex questions and get accurate answers—isn't quite there for most implementations. The technology exists, but training it on your specific catalogue takes significant effort.

Visual search (uploading an image to find similar products) works for some categories like fashion and home décor, but needs high-quality product photography to be effective.

Our Recommendation

Start with the basics. Make sure your search handles typos, has good synonyms, and returns results quickly. Then look at your search analytics—what are people searching for and not finding? Fix those gaps before investing in fancier AI features.