Generative AI Features in Major Databases & Platforms

O'Reilly has introduced a new search option on its platform, O'Reilly Answers, which allows you to enter natural language queries and receive a natural language response citing O'Reilly resources. It uses a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) model and draws only from O’Reilly text content to produce answers, not from the open web. All O'Reilly text content is included in the tool's knowledge base, including video transcripts. Because  O'Reilly's content consists primarily of books on technology and its business applications, the tool will likely be most successful at answering questions in these areas. O'Reilly Answers does not replace regular browsing and searching; it is a new tool that allows you to interact with O'Reilly content in a different way.

In the O'Reilly menu bar, the purple "Answers" option with the stars icon will take you to the O'Reilly Answers interface, where you may enter a question and view the generated natural language result, which includes citations of the O'Reilly sources used to generate the response. These sources are also found in the Sources list on the right side of the interface:

In order to ensure these sources were interpreted correctly, it is best to check these cited sources to ensure they were interpreted accurately. The tool also recommends additional O'Reilly sources in a "More on this Topic" section. At the end of its response, the tool suggests "Related Questions to Explore," that is, related questions you might want to ask O'Reilly Answers:

These questions allow you to ask related questions on the same topic, but each question is treated as a separate query by O'Reilly Answers; it does not offer back-and-forth conversations. O'Reilly is tracking queries and result clicks to evaluate the effectiveness of the tool, but it does not share them with 3rd parties, and your interactions with the tool are not used to train LLMs.

O'Reilly Answers is an implementation of Miso Answers, which allows companies to implement an AI search engine limited to their own content. Miso hosts an O’Reilly-specific instance of their AI platform in a secure cloud environment. O’Reilly does not share with Miso the personally identifiable information (PII) of O’Reilly customers or end users.

Please see O'Reilly's FAQ for more information.