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Adobe Commerce · Search

Adobe Live Search — Adobe Commerce's intelligent search engine

Adobe Live Search is Adobe Commerce's native AI-powered search engine, replacing Elasticsearch/OpenSearch. It includes Adobe Sensei semantic autocomplete, merchandising rules, dynamic synonyms, configurable facets, and integrated analytics. WolfSellers implements Live Search as part of Adobe Commerce projects and optimizes it with per-category tuning and conversion-oriented rules.

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Definition

What is Adobe Live Search?

Adobe Live Search (formerly 'Live Search for Adobe Commerce') is the SaaS search service Adobe includes in the Commerce edition. It replaces Magento's classic search (MySQL + self-hosted Elasticsearch) with an engine hosted on Adobe infrastructure, Adobe Sensei AI for relevance, and no need to maintain your own search clusters.

It delivers 4 components to the storefront: (1) autocomplete popover as the user types, (2) search results page, (3) product recommendations (complementary), (4) analytics dashboards of search behavior.

Capabilities

What Live Search does that classic Magento search doesn't

Magento's classic search did simple keyword matching. Live Search is semantic and business-tunable.

  • Semantic search with Adobe Sensei: understands that 'running shoes' = 'athletic sneakers'
  • Instant autocomplete with product previews (thumbnails + price)
  • Search-as-you-type with <100ms latency
  • Typo tolerance: 'sneaekrs' returns 'sneakers' automatically
  • Synonyms + one-way mappings editable by the merchandising team
  • Boosting rules: promote specific SKUs, hide others, pin to position 1
  • Dynamic facets per attribute (size, color, brand, price) with multi-select
  • Multi-sort: relevance, price, new, best-sellers
  • Search analytics: what they search for, what they don't find, what converts
  • Category merchandising: per-category order rules (feature, hide, reorder)

Decision

Live Search vs Algolia vs Elasticsearch

Three mature alternatives for enterprise search:

  • Adobe Live Search: free with Adobe Commerce (Enterprise), zero infra to run, built-in analytics. Downside: limited customization (can't index non-Commerce sources), less flexible ranking language.
  • Algolia: state-of-the-art UX + features. Ideal if you need to index AEM + Commerce + FAQs + blog content in one unified search. Downside: cost ($1-10k USD/month by volume) and another system to operate.
  • Self-hosted Elasticsearch / OpenSearch: maximum flexibility and control. Ideal if you have data engineers. Downside: you operate the cluster (backups, scaling, tuning).

Delivery

What we do on a Live Search project

Live Search is enabled and configured as part of an Adobe Commerce implementation. Base setup: 2-4 weeks; continuous optimization: ongoing.

  • Initial activation and configuration (if migrating from self-hosted Elasticsearch)
  • Attribute mapping: which go to the index, which are searchable, filterable
  • Initial synonyms definition (EN/ES + Mexican colloquialisms)
  • Merchandising rule setup on key categories (women/men, featured)
  • Storefront integration (PWA Studio, Hyvä, Luma) via GraphQL or widgets
  • Search analytics dashboard + KPIs: 'zero results queries', 'search-to-conversion'
  • Iterative tuning: review no-results queries → add synonyms / create boosts
  • Merchandising team training to manage rules without dev

Frequently asked questions

What is Adobe Live Search?
Adobe Live Search is the AI-powered search engine built into Adobe Commerce. Replaces Magento's classic search with a SaaS service hosted by Adobe, with semantic search via Adobe Sensei, instant autocomplete, editable synonyms, merchandising rules, dynamic facets and analytics. No infra to operate.
Is Live Search free with Adobe Commerce?
Yes, for the Adobe Commerce (paid) edition. Included at no extra cost up to certain request/month limits that cover most operations. Not available for Magento Open Source (free) — you'd use self-hosted Elasticsearch.
Live Search vs Algolia?
Live Search is enough if your stack is 100% Adobe Commerce and you don't need to search external content (blog, FAQs, docs). Algolia wins if: you need unified search across Commerce + AEM + blog, want more ranking customization, or the team values very polished UX features. Algolia costs ~$1-10k USD/month extra.
Can I edit synonyms myself?
Yes. Live Search has a UI in the Adobe Commerce admin where the merchandising team manages synonyms, one-way mappings, boosting rules, facet ordering, and category merchandising without touching code. Changes are real-time.
What does category merchandising do?
Lets you define category-specific rules that affect order and visibility: 'in Sales category, show products with >20% discount first'; 'in Women, hide out-of-stock items'; 'pin this SKU always to position 1 of the New category'. Merchandising team manages it without dev.

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