Smart Search Agent

Finding the right record usually means guessing the exact keywords a colleague typed months ago.

The Smart Search Agent removes that guesswork. It takes a natural-language request, runs Appian Smart Search over your record data, evaluates how well each result matches the intent, and returns a clear answer grounded strictly in what it found. It reasons about whether a request is conceptual or literal and picks the right search mode.

This brings Appian's research and insight pattern to data retrieval across your operations. Operating inside your environment over Data Fabric, the agent reads records and never writes them, and it refuses to fabricate. If the data does not contain a strong match, it says so. It works as a reusable building block that can be pointed at any indexed record type.

Common applications include finding similar or duplicate service cases before opening a new one, locating records by name, ticket reference, or asset ID, and pulling related history for triage or research tasks.

Insurance example. In the Claims Intake and Triage demo app the agent finds similar or duplicate claims from a plain-language description before a new First Notice of Loss is opened, so an adjuster sees prior related claims up front.

• Dual search modes: Chooses semantic (meaning-based) for conceptual questions or lexical (exact phrase) for names, IDs, and specific terms, and switches if results are weak.
• Relevance evaluation: Reads each result's similarity score and content to confirm a match is genuinely relevant, not just superficially similar.
• Grounded, no-fabrication answers: Presents only what the search returned, in order of relevance, distinguishing strong from weak matches.
• Self-correcting search: Refines terms or switches modes across attempts, then reports honestly when the data lacks a match.
• Read-only and safe: Searches and reports on indexed records without ever modifying data.
• Reusable building block: Point it at any indexed record type to add natural-language search to a new process.

This version adds a worked reference implementation in the new Claims Intake and Triage demo app, where the agent finds similar or duplicate claims from a plain-language description before a new First Notice of Loss is opened. The agent remains a reusable, read-only building block that can be pointed at any indexed record type.