Before you can use [AI Search](/docs/ai-hub/ai-search), you must prepare an item catalog which will be the source of items. During the configuration of the AI engine for the search, you must go through the following steps: 1. [Adding product feed](#adding-item-feed) 2. [Selecting a product feed](#selecting-item-feed) 3. [Selecting attributes for preview](/docs/settings/configuration/ai-engine-configuration/engine-configuration-for-search#selecting-attributes-for-preview) 4. [Grouping feed attributes](#grouping-feed-attributes) 5. [Enabling AI Search](#enabling-ai-search-for-the-feed)

You may use the same item catalog for configuring AI Search, Propensity, and Recommendations. As a result, all these features will use the same source of items.

## Adding item feed --- The first step is selecting the feed from which items will be sourced. You can either select a catalog that contains a feed or use Google Merchant Feed. Make sure, the item feed includes the following attributes: - `title` - The name of the item - `category` - The category of the item You can read about requirements for item feed: - [uploaded to a catalog](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/item-feed-in-catalog) - [pulled from an URL](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/google-merchant-feed) Grouping feed attributes is available for this feed type. If you previously configured a feed which you want to use now, you can omit this step.

- We recommend using Google Merchant XML instead of XML files due to the size limits (an XML file cannot exceed 10 MB). - If you're enabling AI engine for visual similarity recommendation model, select the item feed which contains less than 1,000,000 items.

1. Go to **Settings > AI engine configuration**. 2. Click **Add feed**. **Result**: A pop-up appears.

3. Select the product feed you want to use. - **Catalog** 1. On the pop-up, select the type of catalog: - Data catalog - [Metadata catalog](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/metadata-catalog) 2. From the dropdown list, select a catalog.

3. Confirm by clicking **Apply**. **Result**: An item feed based on the contents of the selected catalog appears on the list in **Settings > AI Engine configuration**. - **Google Merchant**

Include the [Last-Modified](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Last-Modified) header to enable detection of whether the product feed import is necessary, this will help you reduce data transmission costs.

1. Provide the following information: - the link to the Google Merchant feed (**Feed link**), - the name of the field (**Feed name**), this name will be visible on the list of item feeds in Synerise in **Settings > AI Engine Configuration** - the frequency of pulling updates from the feed to Synerise (**Interval**), - authentication type (**Authentication type**), - username and password (**Basic** authentication type) - username, password, token type, URL (**Bearer** authentication type)

A pop-up with configuration of pulling data from Google Merchant Feed

2. Proceed to the next step by clicking **Next**. 3. If you want to group feed attributes, enable the toggle. Further [grouping settings are defined](#grouping-feed-attributes) after adding the feed. Grouping feed attributes refers to organizing the attributes or fields within an item feed into logical groups. Instead of treating each product variant — such as different sizes or colors — as a separate item in the feed, all variants of a product are combined and grouped into a single item.

A pop-up with enabling grouping feed attributes

This action is irreversible after applying.

4. Confirm by clicking **Apply**. **Result**: The feed appears on the list in **Settings > AI Engine configuration**. ## Selecting item feed --- 1. In **Settings > AI Engine Configuration**, on the list of feeds, click the feed you added according to the [Adding item feed](#adding-item-feed) procedure. The configuration form opens. In the **Item catalog** section, the feed you are configuring is selected automatically and you can proceed to the next part of the configuration.

[Supplemental catalogs](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/supplemental-catalog) are used exclusively for recommendations. When you [add a supplemental catalog and connect it to an item feed](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/supplemental-catalog#create-a-supplemental-catalog-feed-linked-to-your-catalog), the attributes from the supplemental catalog become available as [Supplemental attributes](/docs/ai-hub/item-feed/supplemental-catalog#supplemental-attributes) in the [recommendation filters](/docs/ai-hub/recommendations-v2/recommendation-filters).

## Selecting attributes for preview --- Define attributes whose values will appear in the [preview of AI Search results](/docs/ai-hub/ai-search/previewing-search-engine-results) when you test the search settings. Without this, the AI search isn't available. 1. On the **Attributes for preview** tab, click **Show**. 2. In the **Response attribute** column, from the lists select the attributes that contain the data in the **Item attributes** column. **Example**: If the data source stores the item title in the `itemTitle` attribute, choose `itemTitle`: on the right, select the `itemTitle` attribute as the pair for `Title` from the left column. **Result**: Values for the attributes that are chosen in the **Response attribute** column will be shown for products when previewing them in the Synerise platform.

This setting is shared by the Recommendations previews and the AI Search Engine previews.

## Grouping feed attributes ---

This option is available only for feeds from Google Merchant XML files.

Grouping feed attributes organizes attributes or fields within an item feed into logical groups. Instead of treating each product variant — such as different sizes or colors — as a separate item in the feed, all variants of a product are combined and grouped into a single item. During this grouping process, a "base" product is selected as representative. This is done by first gathering all products that share the same `itemGroupId`, then grouping them by category, and finally selecting the first product from the largest category group to serve as the base.

Null values and empty attribute values are not handled and will not appear in the grouped results.

When adding such a feed to Synerise, you must enable the grouping of feed attributes. Please note that enabling grouping is irreversible. 1. In the **Grouping feed attributes** section, click **Show**. **Result**: Grouping rules are shown. The system automatically prepares grouping rules. 2. Verify the proposed grouping rules. When configuring the grouping of feed attributes, you must map source fields to target fields using one of the following aggregators. Each aggregator determines how values from multiple items are combined: | Aggregator | Description | Example | Aggregated Result | |----------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------| | **or** | Performs a logical OR on boolean values. Returns `true` if any value is `true`, otherwise `false`. | `true, false, false` | `true` | | **arrayDistinct** | Aggregates unique, non-null values into an array, removing duplicates. | `"41", "42", "41", "42"` | `["41", "42"]` | | **arrayFlatten** | Flattens nested arrays into a single array combining all elements. | `["123", "456"], ["456", "789"]` | `["123", "456", "456", "789"]` | | **array** | Aggregates values into an array, preserving order. | `"41", "42"` | `["41", "42"]` | | **single** | Selects the first non-null value from the list. For the `availability` attribute, the aggregated result will be a boolean value. | `"PROD123", "PROD124"` | `["PROD123"]` | 3. To add your own rule, click **Add rule**. 1. In the **Source filed** dropdown, select an item attribute from the feed pulled from Google Merchant. 2. From the **Aggregator** dropdown list, select the aggregator based on which attribute values will be combined. 3. In the **Target field** dropdown list, select the attribute which will hold the aggregated values. You can create an attribute. 4. Confirm by clicking **Apply**. ## Enabling AI Search for the feed --- Enable the AI Search for the selected catalog or Google Merchant Feed. 1. On the **Applied search engines** tab, click **Show**. 2. Switch the **Search engines** toggle on. 3. Confirm by clicking **Apply**. After that, proceed to [AI Search](/docs/ai-hub/ai-search), and proceed to [the configuration](/docs/ai-hub/ai-search/introduction-to-ai-search#configuring-ai-search) ## Removing item feed --- You can remove item feeds from the list. While removing item feeds, any Synerise objects that rely on the feed as a source of information (such as predictions, recommendations, AI search) will be automatically disabled. Prior to confirming the removal operation, you will be presented with a list of objects that are currently using the feed to be removed. The feed will be removed after 7 days from confirming the action. During this transitional period, the feed and the objects associated with it will remain active. In the case of a feed within a catalog, the contents of the catalog will be deleted, while the catalog itself will be retained. 1. Go to **Settings > AI engine configuration**. 2. Next to the name of the feed you want to remove, click

3. From the dropdown list, select **Delete**. **Result**: A pop-up appears with the list of objects that are currently using the feed. 4. To confirm the operation, click **Yes, delete feed**.