AI Search Toggle — Hybrid or Pure Keyword, the Visitor's Choice
The hosted search page now has an AI toggle, sitting next to the Fresh toggle on every vector-capable index. It puts the choice between hybrid AI search and pure keyword search in the visitor's hands, one search at a time.
01 What the toggle does
Hybrid search combines keyword matching with semantic vector matching. Pure keyword search does exact matching only. Until now that decision belonged to the index owner alone, through the Search Mode setting. The toggle starts on whatever Search Mode the owner configured, and flipping it overrides that mode for that visitor only.
02 The two values
| Value | Effect |
|---|---|
ai=yes | Forces hybrid search, even on a Lexical Only index. |
ai=no | Forces exact keyword matching, even on a hybrid index. |
03 Where the choice lives
The choice rides in the URL, so it survives paging, tab switches, spellcheck and filters, and the resulting address can be bookmarked and shared. Embedded search widgets get the same control through the data-ai attribute.
The full parameter reference is in Pagination, Sorting & Freshness Boosting.