Former search engine Neeva has been acquired by data cloud platform company Snowflake, hinting that Neeva AI search technology will be integrated into their products in the future.
Niva
Neeva was founded by two former Google executives with the vision of creating a search engine that doesn’t serve ads and sell user data.
Their monetization path was based on the idea that privacy-conscious consumers would subscribe to search engines that offered a better user experience.
Their first choice to build a consumer-facing search engine is somewhat of a challenge in a tough market where even giant competitors like Microsoft struggle to wean users from the habit of searching Google for answers. I acted too much.
Nevertheless, Neeva has attracted investment from top Silicon Valley companies like Sequoia Capital, an early investor in companies like Google, Apple and Snowflake.
The Neeva team is focused on developing an AI-enhanced search engine, which will be announced in early 2023. But it was quickly overshadowed by Microsoft’s AI integrations.
After a few months, it became clear that AI alone was not enough to gain more users and a path to monetization, so on May 20, 2023, we shut down the search engine and moved AI into the enterprise space. chose to explore ways to leverage the expertise of
they wrote:
“Over the past year, we have recognized a pressing and distinct need to use LLM effectively, affordably, safely and responsibly.
Many of the technologies we pioneered with smaller models, reduced size, reduced latency and lower cost deployments are what businesses really want and need today.
We are actively looking at how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these environments and will provide an update on our work and the future of our team in the coming weeks. . “
Snowflake Acquires Neeva
It didn’t take long to find that new direction, as Snowflake announced it would be acquiring Neeva four days later on May 24, 2023.
Snowflake is an enterprise data cloud company dedicated to leveraging Neeva search and conversational AI technology in its products.
The acquisition announcement read:
“Search is fundamental to how companies work with data, and the search experience is rapidly evolving as new conversational paradigms emerge in how we ask questions and get information enabled by generative AI. I’m here.
To maximize the value of data, it’s critical that your team can accurately discover the right data points, data assets, or data insights.
That’s why Snowflake is acquiring Neeva, a search company founded to make search at scale even more intelligent.
Neeva leverages generative AI and other innovations to create unique and innovative search experiences that empower users to query and discover data in new ways. “
Snowflake wasn’t specific about the new services it will offer, but the combination of AI and LLM capabilities with data is a natural fit, potentially enabling businesses to leverage their data in new ways. there is.
Read the official announcement by Snowflake.
Snowflake Acquires Neeva to Accelerate Searches in the Data Cloud Through Generative AI
Featured image by Shutterstock/Poetra.RH
