Talk in English - US at PHP Tek 2026
View Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/ericmann/semantic-search-and-embeddings-modernizing-php-search-with-vector-databases
Short URL: https://joind.in/talk/68fb0
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Traditional keyword-based search is dying. Users expect Google-quality search that understands intent, handles typos gracefully, and finds semantically similar content even when exact keywords don't match. Thanks to embeddings and vector databases, you can now build this level of search sophistication in your PHP applications?and it's easier than you think.
This talk demystifies semantic search by showing you how to transform your existing PHP search implementation into an intelligent, meaning-aware system. You'll learn how embeddings work (without needing a PhD in machine learning), how to integrate vector databases into your PHP stack, and practical strategies for implementing hybrid search that combines the best of keyword and semantic approaches.
This talk includes live demonstrations of semantic search finding relevant results where traditional search fails, showing side-by-side comparisons and actual code examples. You'll see how to retrofit semantic search into existing applications without a complete rewrite, making this immediately actionable for PHP developers
Comments
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Brilliant talk! I learned a lot about vectors, and feel inspired on how I can take this and try it out. Great technical details, good examples were used, slides were feature rich, and talk was presented well. Nice work Eric!
Great step by step overview of what semantic search is. Made it really easy to see how to get started. Great talk.
Great overview & background of complex concepts and showed clear steps & paths for learning more, with clear incentives for why you'd want to continue.
Thank you so much. This is one of the talks that "bought" the conference for me, and I'll be adding this to my project asap.
Great source of information. I personally enjoyed how actionable you presented the content.
Semantic search was completely new to me. I feel confident this talk gave me everything I need to know when and how to implement it.
Excellent talk. Clear and actionable. The only thing I'd suggest is spending a few more minutes on how to actually connect to either the 3rd party service or a local instance. But the rest made a lot of sense to me.