Best practices for Intelligent Search
Getting the most out of Intelligent Search comes down to a few key habits:
More context = better results. Unlike keyword search, where shorter queries tend to work best, Intelligent Search performs better when given more information. Full phrases and complete questions will typically return more relevant results than single words or abbreviated terms.
Use relevance-based sorting to your advantage. Intelligent Search ranks results by relevance rather than keyword match, which means the most contextually appropriate results surface first — even if the exact words don't appear in the content. If you're unsure which search mode is right for a particular query, try toggling between Keyword and Intelligent Search to compare results and see which delivers better outcomes for your use case.
Licensing Information
• Intelligent Search is an add-on feature to Atomic Search.
• To inquire about a license, please contact ben.runyan@atomicjolt.com.
• Once a license is purchased, Atomic Jolt will enable a feature flag on the backend. Intelligent Search will then be available in your Canvas environment.
Data Security & Privacy
Atomic Jolt takes the handling of customer data seriously:
• Intelligent Search uses sandboxed AI models that do not have internet access.
• These models do not retain state. Once a process is complete, no data is kept.
• AI outputs (e.g., vectorization, text generation) are always passed into deterministic code, ensuring strict control over data access and storage.
This approach means your institutional data is secure, private, and controlled within your environment.
Key Features
| Semantic understanding | Results are based on the meaning of your query, not just exact word matches. |
| Document preparation | A background process prepares course documents for semantic analysis. |
| Eligibility requirement | Documents must contain at least 1,000 characters to be included in Intelligent Search processing. Shorter content will continue to use standard keyword matching. |
| Toggle control | You can easily switch between keyword search and Intelligent Search. |
How to Access Intelligent Search
1. Open Search
• Navigate to your course in Canvas.
• Open Atomic Search from the course navigation menu.
2. Perform a Search
• Enter a keyword or phrase into the search bar and click Search.
3. Enable Intelligent Search
• After the results load, toggle the Intelligent Search slider (located next to the search bar).
4. View Results
• Results will refresh to show semantic, context-aware results.
• You can toggle the slider off at any time to return to standard keyword results.
Example Workflow
1. Search for “climate change impact”.
2. With standard keyword search, results show only pages that use those exact words.
3. Toggle Intelligent Search on, and results may include content about global warming effects or environmental consequences, even if those exact words were not used.
Video Walkthrough
Tip: Use Intelligent Search when looking for concepts or themes. Use standard keyword search when you need an exact match.
Caution: Search operators (such as wildcard, this not that, quotations) do not work with Intelligent Search.