Besides X and his grand vision for a broader social entertainment utility, Elon Musk is also investing in AI. That is especially surprising to hear, considering how Musk appears seemingly overt to advanced AI-assisted processes. Musk dreams of building his own ‘maximally truth seeking’ generative AI model – one that’s immune to external political influence. X users, get ready for the arrival of X semantic search.

A Rich Language

This new X update might also feed into Musk’s newly renamed platform. In response to criticism of X’s current search functionality, Musk shared a post. X seems to be working on a new way to build semantic data matching into its systems. New semantics will provide enhanced search capacity and potentially new data insights for businesses and creators.

Contextually speaking, X semantic search will help users better understand mentions in a post, versus simply feeding through keyword matches. That has become the focus of X’s renewed push to counteract hate speech in the app. Despite third-party reports stating that in-app hate speech has risen since Musk took over, internal X research says otherwise.

Factoring the context of such mentions, as opposed to tallying keyword matches, hate speech instances have actually declined. 86% of slur usage in the app is not posted in a negative or harmful way. Simply put, context matters. X will hope to use AI to more effectively sort such, providing more insight into how words are being used in posts. If X lands the hammer on the nail, semantic search provides a more accurate and complete search experience.

Musk mentions that improving X’s search functionality was a ‘high priority’ during the early stages of his takeover. At the same time, he has also pledged to include semantic keyword-based targeting for X ads and improved search feedback loops. So far, none of these have come to fruition, but Musk and his team are pushing forward in developing an xAI model. This model may play a role in facilitating these improvements, building a better contextual targeting system.

The Wrap

X semantic search could deliver significant improvements. It’s currently not clear how long it will take to develop the system. Will it link back to the X app? It is too early to tell, but plans are likely in motion, as part of the platform’s rapid evolution. Content discovery has never been Twitter’s (now X) strong point, but this could finally change that.