Free Lesson
Cheat at Search Essentials: Embedding Retrieval
Part of Cheat at Search Essentials
60 min
May 12, 2026 12:00 PM
Virtual (Zoom)
In this video
What you'll learn
Learn how embeddings implement 'semantic search'
What is a 'vector embedding' and why do they capture meaning? And how can that be used to build a search system?
Tackle the practical realities vector retrieval
Why do we need a vector database? And why are they different from traditional search engines? Should they be different?
How are vector + lexical techniques combined?
Offer a concrete and concise explanation of how you will
help students understand and apply this lesson.
Why this topic matters
For decades, search techniques were dominated by lexical search. IE some form of 'dumb token matching'. Yet in the last decade, embedding based retrieval has completely upended that paradigm, giving us results focused on semantic search before strings.
You'll learn from
Doug Turnbull
Led search teams at Reddit, Shopify, Wikipedia, and more
Worked with
