Long definition
Where lexical search matches the exact words you typed, semantic search retrieves content based on meaning. The query 'how do I get notified when a website changes' returns articles about web change detection even if those exact words don't appear. The underlying technology is usually neural embeddings — high-dimensional vectors that encode meaning — or LLM-based ranking.
Examples
- Searching 'remote-friendly engineering teams' and getting results about distributed engineering culture, even from pages that don't use those exact words.
- Topic monitoring that catches 'FDA greenlights drug' for a user who described 'FDA approval'.
How Ayewatch handles it
Semantic understanding is the core of AyeWatch's matching engine. Topics are described in plain English; the AI evaluates new content for intent-match, not keyword-match.