The world is buzzing with talk of AI that can reason, mimicking human logic. While this feels like a sudden leap for many, for me, it’s the fulfillment of a vision I’ve nurtured for over a decade. It’s a transition I not only anticipated but have been actively working towards, moving from the rigid world of keywords to the fluid realm of contextual understanding.
The Future I Envisioned
Back in 2010, I wrote about the Future of Search Engines, making a prediction that now seems more relevant than ever:
I am acutely conscious that in another 25 years, no one will search for "INFORMATION" on Google - Yahoo - MSN etc. They will enter their current / expected "problem" in a hand - held device and receive readymade "solution / answer / advice" in milliseconds !
This was the core idea: a shift from information retrieval to solution generation. We are now seeing the dawn of this era. The journey to get here has been incremental, built on foundational ideas about how we organize and access data.
From Keywords to Context
My fascination began with the mechanics of search. I remember drafting a user interface concept in a note to Shalaka about creating a "Long Tail / Jobs" page designed to index millions of keywords, hoping to master the search engine algorithms of the day. The goal was simple: visibility. Even my early work on ResuSearch was about refining search beyond basic parameters.
But simple keyword matching was never the endgame. It was a means to an end. The real challenge, which became intensely practical as I began developing my digital twin, was how to extract not just words, but meaning.
This brings me to my recent collaborations. My discussions with Sharon Zhang (sharon-hipaa@personal.ai) of Personal.ai, and the meticulous work done by Manoj Hardwani (manoj.hardwani@atidan.com) and Suman (suman.kanuganti@personal.ai), revolved around this very problem. We debated how to move from a flat list of parsed keywords to a dynamic system of topics that could power a conversational AI (Keywords for sample content). The effort to parse my life’s work, a task I discussed in detail with Kishan (kishan@enjoyevervibe.com), was not just about data extraction. It was an attempt to map the connections, the frequencies, and the relationships between ideas I’ve explored over thirty years.
Reasoning is Connection
What is human reasoning, after all? It’s the ability to connect disparate pieces of information to form a coherent solution or a new idea. It’s not about finding a document with the word “leadership”; it’s about synthesizing everything I’ve ever written or thought about leadership and offering a nuanced perspective.
The rise of reasoning models is the technological manifestation of this principle. They are moving beyond the Ctrl+F function of the internet to become genuine thinking partners. Seeing this unfold validates the trajectory I imagined years ago. The path from a simple search bar to a reasoning engine has been a long one, but it's a journey from finding what is said to understanding what is meant.
We are finally building the machines that don't just search for information, but provide solutions. And that changes everything.
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
Of course, if you wish, you can debate this topic with my Virtual Avatar at : hemenparekh.ai
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