Melbourne Search & AI User Group #3

Hello, and welcome to the third installment of the Melbourne Search & AI User Group.

Below you will find the agenda + talk summaries
5:30 PM – 6:00 PM: Arrivals, Networking, Pizza & Drinks
6:00 PM – 6:05 PM: Welcome & Housekeeping
6:05 PM – 6:35 PM: First Speaker - Alex Bunday, NetApp Instaclustr
6:35 PM – 7:10 PM: Second Speaker - Ben Slater, OpenSearch Board Member
7:10 PM – 7:20 PM: Tech Quiz - Put your brain to the test to win prizes
7:20 PM – 7:30 PM Wrap-up & Networking

Talk 1: AI Search for OpenSearch - The Next Era of Search
Speaker: Alex Bunday - NetApp Instaclustr OpenSearch Product Manager

Talk Summary: AI Search is transforming how organisations discover information by moving beyond traditional keyword matching to deliver semantic, hybrid, and multimodal search experiences. With AI Search for OpenSearch, users can deploy built-in machine learning models to generate vector embeddings, ingest data through streamlined pipelines, and store these embeddings in cost-effective vector indexes. This enables advanced search techniques—such as semantic search for meaning-based results, hybrid search for combining relevance and performance, and multimodal search that integrates text and image data. And the best thing? It can all be enabled at the click of a button using OpenSearch's advanced AI Search Flow Templates.

Want to know how? I'll cover this topic in my talk.

Speaker Bio: Alex Bunday is the product manager for OpenSearch at NetApp Instaclustr. With a knack for steering product development and strategy through every twist and turn of the product life cycle, Alex thrives on collaborating with customers to unlock the full potential of OpenSearch. When he's not conjuring up product solutions, you'll find Alex cheering on his favourite footy team or enjoying strolls with his wife, baby, and two lovable golden retrievers.

Talk 2: Q&A
Speaker: Ben Slater, OpenSearch Foundation Governing Board Member

Talk Summary: Join Ben Slater, OpenSearch Foundation Governing Board member, for an insightful discussion on the evolution and future of OpenSearch. Ben will share:

• Why you should care about governance when choosing an open source technology for your organisation
• How being a true open source project will shape the future of OpenSearch, allowing it to differentiate over time, and what that means for developers and enterprises.
• Where the project is focused today, and the exciting developments happening within OpenSearch.

This session offers a behind-the-scenes look at governance, strategy, and innovation driving one of the most important open-source search and analytics platforms.