Snowflake acquires search startup Neeva to leverage generative AI

New Delhi, May 25 (IANS) Cloud data platform provider Snowflake has acquired search startup Neeva to accelerate search in the Data Cloud through generative AI.

Neeva has created a unique and transformative search experience that leverages generative AI and other innovations to allow users to query and discover data in new ways.

The financial terms of the deal was not disclosed.

"We plan to infuse and leverage these innovations across the Data Cloud to the benefit of our customers, partners and developers. Neeva allows us to tap into some of the most cutting-edge search technologies available to bring search and conversation in Snowflake to a new level," said Benoit Dageville, Snowflake's co-founder and President, Products.

"We're excited about what this acquisition means for search in the Data Cloud," he added.

Neeva Founders Sridhar Ramaswamy and Vivek Raghunathan said that
in early 2022, the upcoming impact of generative AI and LLMs (large language models) became clear to them.

"We embarked on an ambitious effort to seamlessly blend LLMs into our search stack. We rallied the Neeva team around the vision to create an answer engine. We are proud of being the first search engine to provide cited, real-time AI answers to a majority of queries early this year," they wrote in a separate blog post.

Over the next few weeks, they will shut down neeva.com and consumer search product.

If you have a paid subscription to Neeva Premium, you will receive a refund for the unused portion of your subscription, the founders said.

"Many of the techniques we have pioneered with small models, size reduction, latency reduction, and inexpensive deployment are the elements that enterprises really want, and need, today. We are actively exploring how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these settings," they explained.