LinkedIn adds AI-powered search to help users find people

Summary

For the last two years, LinkedIn has tried to infuse AI into different parts of its platforms, including ad copies, content creation, personalized digests, hiring assistance, job hunting advice, and learning. The company is now finally adding AI to one of the most used parts of the site: search. Earlier this year, the company released a job search tool for members in the U.S., allowing them to search for jobs using natural language queries. Now, the company is extending the feature to people search. Users can use queries like “Find me investors in the healthcare sector with FDA experience,” people who “co-founded a productivity company and are based in NYC,” or “Who in my network can help me understand wireless networks.” Image Credits:LinkedIn Until now, LinkedIn’s search has been more complicated. You can type in a few words to find the right people or rely on many different LinkedIn filters in the hope of getting the right results. Plus, you also have to think about what kinds of words you might want to use to get the best out of the search system. “With lexical search, you have to know the exact title of the person, or you need to wrestle with filters to find the right person, maybe. And if you didn’t know the right combination, the right person remained undiscovered. The new AI-powered people search is designed to be the fastest path to the person who can help you the most,” Rohan Rajiv, senior director of product management at LinkedIn, told TechCrunch over a call. The company said in its early testing, it has seen people use this to find others who can help them with their next job opportunity, expand their business, or boost their career prospects. Search has been one area where all internet platforms have been rushing to add AI. Seeing people gravitate towards chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity for answers, incumbent search engines like Google, Bing, Brave, and DuckDuckGo have added AI-powered answers. There are plenty of startups working on AI-powered pe...