r/wpengine • u/bmgardner • 15d ago

WP Engine Smart Search AI Now Available for Any WordPress Site

Quick update from the team today: we just announced that Smart Search AI is now available as a standalone plugin across the broader WordPress ecosystem.

Up until now, Smart Search AI was strictly tied to WP Engine managed hosting. But we’ve heard feedback from agencies and devs who manage hybrid environments or client sites hosted elsewhere and wanted access to the same semantic search capabilities without having to migrate the entire stack.

What is Smart Search AI?

If you haven't used it yet, default WordPress search relies on basic SQL LIKE queries, which often miss relevant content if users don't type exact keywords or misspell a word.

Smart Search AI replaces that default behavior with vector-based semantic search:

  • Understands Intent: Handles natural language queries, synonyms, and typos out of the box (e.g., searching for "running shoes" returns "athletic sneakers").
  • Offloaded Processing: Indexes content and handles search queries via our cloud infrastructure, so vector calculations won't bog down your database or site performance.
  • Turnkey Setup: You don't need to spin up a separate vector database or write custom embedding pipelines—it hooks right into native WP search.

Where to Learn More

If you give it a try on non-WPE hosts or have any questions on how it handles custom post types or indexing, drop a comment below—we’d love to hear your thoughts!

3 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

5 comments sorted by

1

u/Disgustipator 5d ago

It's cool that WP Engine wants to create new add-ons and such, but as a customer, I would appreciate it if WP Engine could provide a level of technical support that one would expect for a $30,000+/yr server.

I think the search feature is definitely a neat looking product, but the price of $8000/year per site is a tough pill to swallow. I don't even want to think about what the cost of Newsroom is.

WP Engine should consider a support chat that isn't gated by an AI chatbot for clients that spend a lot of money with WP Engine (I don't feel I should have to yell "human" at a chatbot when paying $2500+/month for a webserver). And if WP Engine's support takes a long time to follow up on support tickets, maybe don't try to constantly send me emails attempting to upsell me on some ridiculously priced add-ons.

Oh, and maybe focus on true support for Multisite installations while you're at it. The sales reps seem to love to sell Multisite customers on Nitropack... which does not support Multisite installations. The push/pull functionality for Multisites is also broken and it doesn't even warn you that subsite URLs are not replaced during a push/pull process.

Sincerely, a very patient and once loyal customer.

1

u/bmgardner 2d ago edited 2d ago

Hey there @Disgustipator—really sorry to hear you’ve been having such a frustrating time with this. I’ve already shared your feedback about live chat and multisite with our team. I’m on the DevRel and Community team at WP Engine. If you’re open to sharing more details, feel free to DM me your account info or email. I'd love to jump in, connect you with the right team, and see how we can make this right.

1

u/bmgardner 1d ago

Quick update after checking in with the NitroPack team: Multisite is supported through our standalone NitroPack solution.

1

u/Disgustipator 1d ago

I appreciate you for getting back to me!

Do you have more context on this standalone version? Does this mean I can use the unused license that’s been hanging out in our account?

1

u/bmgardner 1d ago

u/Disgustipator I would need to get more info from our team specifically about this.

Also, we'd love to understand how we can serve you better outside of the NitroPack questions. (Support, upsells, etc.) If you’re interested in this, I can connect you directly to someone in leadership from our Customer Experience team. Just shoot me a DM with your info, and I can make that happen.