Cotinga

AI search for online shops, installed in minutes

A French software product, Cotinga puts an artificial intelligence search engine into an online shop without any programming. The company says a store can be indexed within minutes, after which shoppers get a search that understands what they mean rather than only matching exact words. The product was offered as a beta programme, and it is aimed at merchants who want to improve the search experience on their sites.

The engine corrects spelling mistakes automatically, so that a typing error does not stop a shopper finding a product. Its autocomplete suggests suitable products while the shopper is still typing, which means the full query does not need to be entered. Results are not limited to products: collections, categories and pages that match the search are returned too. Neural search goes further than keywords, grasping the concepts and questions behind a query.

Multimodal search that learns from shoppers

The engine is described as multimodal, meaning it can search text, images, audio and video from whatever kind of data a shop holds. It captures customer interactions on the store automatically and learns each day, adjusting its answers to the requests it receives. Shoppers can narrow their results with filters for price, colour, size, brand and similar attributes, which the company says helps them find products faster.

Shopify, WooCommerce and an API

The product is designed for online retailers and works with Shopify and WooCommerce through applications that the company says can be installed in five minutes. For retailers who want their own search features, an API lets them build the search functions they need and make them available to customers. The package is described as including API access and integrations, automatic spelling checks and full-text search.