WalmartLabs, the retail giant’s technology think-tank, has developed a new search engine aimed at making it easier for customers to find products on the site. Called Polaris, the search engine treats search terms as “categories.” It also takes cues from the products’ popularity in social media, Sri Subramaniam, VP of WalmartLabs said in a recent interview.
“We want it to be more of a shopping guide,” Subramaniam told Fast Company. “We encourage [customers] to explore in a more visual manner.”
Sri Subramaniam knows plenty about search. He was the head engineer at Kosmix, which Walmart bought in 2011 and turned into WalmartLabs. Kosmix got its start building the product search engine Junglee, which Amazon bought in 1998.
You can read more about Walmart’s search engine at fastcompany.com.
