For years, Elasticsearch was known as a powerful engine for traditional text ingestion, processing, and search - for example, logs. In this talk, we’ll cover the capabilities introduced since then that make Elasticsearch (and the rest of the Elastic Stack) a strong choice for going beyond log analysis and classic BM25 search. Topics include dense vectors, sparse vectors, and hybrid search, along with features that improve effectiveness in modern retrieval scenarios.

Learning the different search techniques is essential for developers aiming to implement effective search functionality. In this talk we’ll break down keyword, semantic, vector and hybrid search approaches. We will explore how each method works, their advantages and disadvantages, and practical use cases. This talk is for developers created by a developer and will break down what can be overly complex concepts into practical takeaways for our everyday work. By the end of the session, you’ll have a better understanding of when and how to use each search technique to optimize your user experience.