Semantic Search

This information was sourced from "Semantic Search" by AI.GOV.UK, https://ai.gov.uk/knowledge-hub/tools/semantic-search/?directTo=library. Licensed under Open Government Licence v3.0.

The challenge

ustice professionals face significant time delays when searching through large volumes of information, ranging from operational guidance to complex case files. Traditional keyword-based searches often struggle to return relevant results due to language variations, including abbreviations, synonyms, and misspellings.

The solution

Semantic Search is an LLM-powered AI tool that understands context, meaning, and language variations to return results that match user intent. The system provides more relevant results from the first search, thereby ensuring improved decision quality through access to complete information.

The results

Semantic Search is delivering efficiency improvements across multiple justice domains:

• Probation officers reported having time freed up to focus on offender rehabilitation, risk management, and community safety.
• Court and Tribunal staff are supported through a system that can interrogate 300+ documents to return a simple summarised response with citations to source documents.