Modern AI Search Techniques You Should Know

Hosted by Trey Grainger and Doug Turnbull

Wed, Mar 4, 2026

5:00 PM UTC (1 hour 15 minutes)

Virtual (Zoom)

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AI-Powered Search: Modern Retrieval for Humans & Agents
Trey Grainger and Doug Turnbull
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What you'll learn

A survey of modern AI Search techniques

We'll do an overview of key modern AI search techniques to familiarize you with when and how they can improve retrieval.

A Mental Model for Hybrid Search and Retrieval Pipelines

Retrieval is much more than base hybrid search (bm25 + semantic). We'll discuss how to combine other modern techniques.

What is Reflected Intelligence?

How do modern retrieval systems integrate user behavior and automated relevance feedback?

Get a Sneak Peek of the AI-Powered Search Course

Students in the month-long "AI-Powered Search" course learn and implement these (and more). Find out what's in store.

Why this topic matters

Modern retrieval includes techniques like Hybrid Search (BM25, Dense Vector Search, etc), Late Interaction, Wormhole Vectors, Agentic Search, Semantic Knowledge Graphs, Learning to Rank, Signals Boosting, Sparse Encoders, Active Learning, Cross-encoders, Tensors, SPLADE, Muvera, ... the list goes on. Join Trey and Doug for a quick quick rundown of some key AI Search techniques worth understanding.

You'll learn from

Trey Grainger

Founder @ Searchkernel, Author "AI-Powered Search"

Trey is lead author of the book AI-Powered Search and is the founder of Searchkernel, a software company building the next generation of AI-powered search. He is an advisor to several startups and adjunct professor of computer science at Furman University. He previously served as CTO of Presearch, a decentralized web search engine, and as chief algorithms officer and SVP of engineering at Lucidworks, an search company whose search technology powers hundreds of the world’s leading organizations. Trey in an instructor for the AI-Powered Search course on Maven.

Doug Turnbull

Search and Snuggie Enthusiast

In 2012, Doug got bit by the search bug and he's still trying to keep up. From full-text search, to Learning to Rank models, to search agents that generate their own code, he knows the endless landscape first hand. Yet Doug wants to deeply understand the what / how / why. He wants to help teams use these technologies practically, distinguishing hype from reality.

He’s led search at Reddit, Shopify, and Wikipedia, authored Relevant Search and AI Powered Search, and advised 100+ organizations over the years - all in pursuit of the same question: how does search actually work?

Previously at

Reddit
Wikipedia
Lucidworks
CareerBuilder
Shopify.com

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