If you're new to Vertex AI Search, consider following the Get started with media search quickstart tutorial to create a sample app.
Set up a Google Cloud project, turn on Vertex AI Agent Builder, and set up access control for your project. You can use an existing Google Cloud project if you have one already.
Actions
- Complete the steps in Before you begin.
Prepare your data for importing to Vertex AI Search.
Media search apps use the following data:
Structured media data. Required. Upload metadata information about your media content, such as titles, descriptions, and URIs to the location of your media. Vertex AI Search provides a predefined schema for media that this data must conform to.
User events. Optional but highly recommended. Recording user events help generate better ranking for your search results.
Actions
Review information about media data and data stores and prepare your data according to the required schemas and fields in About media documents and data stores.
Review media user event requirements in About user events.
Create an app and data store and then import your media data.
How you import media data depends on where you're importing it from. For example, if your data is in Cloud Storage, you can import it using the console or the API by providing the bucket location of your data.
For media search apps, user events are recommended but not required.
Actions
To import your media data, follow the instructions for your data source in Import data into a media data store.
Bulk import historical user events so that your app can start training.
Vertex AI Search provides many configuration options. Some options depend on whether you plan to deploy a search widget.
Actions
Depending on your use case and whether you plan to deploy the out-of-the-box search widget or integrate search API calls into your own code, Vertex AI Search provides several options for configuration.
You can embed a search widget into your website that automatically provides a search bar and expandable search interface. If you plan to deploy the search widget, configure the following:
Search widget results. See Configure results for the search widget.
Search widget facets. See Configure facets for the search widget.
If you plan to integrate search API calls into your server or application instead of using the widget, you can configure your search settings using the following options:
Field settings. For structured data or for unstructured data with metadata, update field settings to refine how Vertex AI Search uses metadata for search. See Configure fields for search.
Autocomplete. Depending on your data, set up autocomplete suggestions based on document content, fields, search history, or user events. See Configure autocomplete.
Serving controls (Preview with allowlist). Control when search results are boosted, buried, filtered, or redirected, or whether certain queries are associated with other queries. See Configure serving controls.
Search-as-you-type. If your app uses awkward input devices such as TV remote controls, you can enable the search-as-you-type feature. See Get search-as-you-type results for a media app.
If you plan to deploy your app by integrating search API calls into your own code, you can configure filtering for your search results.
Actions
- Filter search results. See Filter media search.
You can preview your search results to check if your app configurations are working as expected.
Actions
To preview your search results, use the console or the API.
Console. Use the Vertex AI Agent Builder console Preview page to preview how search widget configurations affect your results. See the Console instructions in Get search results.
API. If you're integrating API calls into your application, you can make API calls to preview your search configurations. See the REST instructions in Get search results.
When you're happy with the preview version of your media search app, share it with your users by deploying it to your website.
Actions
You can deploy your search app in either of the following ways:
Embed the search widget into your website. Vertex AI Search provides code that you can copy into your website or web application. This deploys the search widget. You can preview search results in the console. See Add the search widget to a webpage.
Integrate search API calls into your server or application. For full control over how your search results are displayed, you can integrate API calls into your server or applications. For more information about making API calls, see Get search results. For client library resources, see Vertex AI Agent Builder client libraries.
You can maintain your app to ensure that latest and necessary data is available in your data store.