New feature: Smart Search

Will smart search be incorporated with the the Bible or is this specific only to Books/All?

I noticed that, unlike the Precise search, Smart search does not give you location info for the search results, which is important for actual print books in my print library. Yes, I can run a Precise search (on quoted text from the Smart search) and get the location info that way, but that extra work can add up in time. Is it possible to see page/chapter number etc in Smart search, same as we do in Precise search?

Antony Brennan said:

in Smart Search I would prefer that the results are sorted with the resources I don't  own at the  bottom.  Another option would be that I could sort them down to the bottom.   I know I could use the book search currently but sometimes I prefer an All Search.

I agree, put the books that I do not own at the bottom of the search results screen. 

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

Smart Search doesn't use ChatGPT or Gemini.

In Smart Search, we perform a very loose search without AI. That finds 50 articles that roughly match your query. We then use AI to identify a snippet from each article that most closely matches your query. We don't rewrite any text; we only identify the most relevant existing text in the book. Once we have these snippets, we use AI to re-order them to put the most relevant ones at the top.

Mark Barnes, 

Will Faithlife explicitly inform buyers/subscribers on its website of what you have described here?

That is, that the AI search is actually an ordinary search, but that it only in the background filters the results through the AI to categorize the most relevant ones?

Customers should be clearly informed of this and I hope that Faithlife will make this clear as long as this is the case and also when it changes. No one should unknowingly buy a bargain.

I'm really disappointed to hear that! Because it means, sorry to say, it seems to me that first a "dumb" search is done, and then a "smart" search filters the first one. The point is that if the base search is not so good, the second one becomes bad.

I'd prefer to do a precise search with the operators I've already mastered well, so that the AI can then filter and return the best ones. Wouldn't that be possible?

Paying by the month to sort a bad search isn't as smart as Logos developing unfinished current tools to get a good search from the beginning.  That is the feature I want and would pay for. 

Mark Barnes (Logos) said:

It's specifically a search, not an AI chatbot. What were you expecting to be different?

I feel, when reading several answers, that you are starting to get nervous about the questions raised. That's part of the job. It is something new with many implications and consequences for users.

Not to say it's not a chatbot, but it says it will use AI for research. What will most users understand from AI search?

Agreed. This isn't very useful if it doesn't prioritize my resources I already own. As it is now, it just feels like a sales tool.

That's great! Thank you!

1Cor10 31 said:

This "old" search will over time be deprecated and the "new" AI search will be the default search and you'll be paying subscription for the rest of your life for conducting a simple search! 

If by "old" search you mean what is now called Precise Search, I don't agree. There are search functions for which the current Smart Search is not  useful. Also, there will always be people leery of the Smart Search, (wrongly) lumping it in with generative AI; I don't see Logos alienating these customers by going full AI search even if they got to the point of using Smart Search for all search functions.

1Cor10 31 said:

Bookmark this post and come back in a few years to point this out to Logos team.

Please give a specific number for "a few years" - I want to set a reminder 😛

Thank you Dave.

Not smart enough about what goes in the background in AI search. Is there a place where we can read about the pros and cons of the current Logos search vs. the new AI search?

Thanks 

Thank you Dave. That was helpful indeed.

Suggestion: Custom "Admin" Prompts for AI Agents

Is there a way for each user to have their own customized "admin" prompts for the AI search agent? I'm thinking of an "Agent Admin Prompt" that would guide the AI’s behavior during a specific search session. For example, I’ve been exploring topics related to Abram, Sarai, and Hagar, and I’d find it helpful to have an Admin prompt like: "Prioritize and provide resources, search results, and perspectives that cover theological minority viewpoints, such as feminist, womanist, Asian, and African-American perspectives." For me this could help surface results that I would normally not find.

Also, having the ability to direct the AI in this way could reduce the "black box" feeling when it returns search results. Right now, it seems the AI is trying to handle too many tasks at once—often prioritizing results based on similarity, which is useful, but doesn’t always meet the specific focus I'm looking for. I’d love to see a feature that allows users to have more control over how the AI prioritizes and refines search results. This functionality could also include feature flags like: owned resources only, my top rated commentaries, etc.