Dailymotion optimizes search engine performance with Vertex AI Search for media
Improved search relevance and click-through rate (+17%)
Fast and efficient deployment (95% of value captured after only 25% content integration)
Nearly doubled usage of the search feature over one year
In its pursuit of the latest innovations for its users, Dailymotion sought a new search engine solution. With a catalog of over 100 million videos, the company needed a solution specifically designed for multimedia content and leveraging advanced semantic understanding.
In its pursuit of the latest innovations for its users, Dailymotion sought a new search engine solution. With a catalog of over 100 million videos, the company needed a solution specifically designed for multimedia content and leveraging advanced semantic understanding.
Search Engine: A strategic asset for increasing user engagement
Founded in 2005, Dailymotion is a leader in the online video world. While many know the platform for its consumer site, the company has also significantly evolved towards B2B in recent years, establishing itself as a key partner for media outlets like Le Monde, L’Équipe, beIN Sports, and Marie Claire. Dailymotion is now ubiquitous in the French media landscape. "In fact, nine out of ten French internet users use Dailymotion, notably through the integration of our video player on numerous partner sites," says Noémie Bocquet, VP of Data & AI Products at Dailymotion.
Dailymotion constantly seeks to innovate, providing its users with optimized search and recommendation experiences. These are strategic priorities, and as Noémie Bocquet points out, "80% of new users perform a search during their first session on our application. Beyond the audience and revenue generated directly by the search engine, this demonstrates how much this feature impacts the perception of our entire product."
However, facing a catalog of over 100 million constantly evolving videos and handling search requests every second from users worldwide, the challenge is significant. Dailymotion sought a new external solution leveraging the latest innovations in search relevance and semantic understanding. This was particularly important for Dailymotion because the quality of video metadata can vary greatly, and search terms can be ambiguous. In this context, semantic understanding helps better address user needs.
80% of new users perform a search during their first session on our application. Beyond the audience and revenue generated directly by the search engine, this demonstrates how much this feature impacts the perception of our entire product.
Noémie Bocquet
VP of Data & AI Products at Dailymotion
"If videos don't appear in search results when they exist on our site, it's disappointing for users. Our efforts to optimize the existing solution had only yielded marginal improvements. In fact, most market solutions are designed for ecommerce, while we needed a solution truly designed for media content. When Google Cloud released Vertex AI Search for media, we quickly saw its potential and decided to launch a POC."
Boosting performance and relevance with Vertex AI Search for media
Dailymotion chose Vertex AI Search for media, a fully managed solution, to optimize content search and improve user experience. By integrating generative AI, this technology allows the platform to offer advanced search capabilities, contributing to audience growth and loyalty. "We could have developed our own engine in-house, but that takes time and resources," explains Noémie Bocquet. "With Vertex, we found a solution that met our needs, with maintenance and development handled by an online search specialist. This also allowed us to focus our internal efforts on the product experience around the search feature, as well as improving video understanding (metadata, audio transcription) and video recommendations, which are central to our product."
In the first week of testing, we saw a 17% increase in post-search click-through rate, while our previous optimization efforts peaked at 2%. With significantly better qualitative and quantitative results, we decided to adopt Vertex AI Search for media and accelerate its production deployment.
Noémie Bocque
VP of Data & AI Products at Dailymotion
To test the true added value of Vertex AI Search for media, Dailymotion conducted a POC focusing solely on video content, which is by far the most searched (well ahead of playlists, for example). Already a BigQuery user, the company easily imported its vast catalog into Google Cloud's dedicated media content datastore. It then put its POC to the test in production using an A/B test (statistical evaluation method) to compare the relevance of results and the performance of Vertex AI Search for media with its previous search engine. "In the first week of testing, we saw a 17% increase in post-search click-through rate, while our previous optimization efforts peaked at 2%. With significantly better qualitative and quantitative results, we decided to adopt Vertex AI Search for media and accelerate its production deployment," says Noémie Bocquet.
A pragmatic approach focused on rapid results
Dailymotion chose to initially focus on completing its video index, representing only one of four indexes but by far the most searched. A strategic choice that Noémie Bocquet explains very simply: "One of the keys to our project's success was aiming for rapid production, even if the integration of all our content was not yet complete. Thus, only one month after the first A/B test, we captured 95% of the business value with only 25% of the implementation completed. Moreover, testing a solution in real conditions allowed us to immediately see if it brought value, and to secure that value before iterating and extending the integration to the rest of the catalog."
Building on the success of this project and having integrated initial Google Cloud generative AI models over two years ago, Dailymotion intends to accelerate in this direction by leveraging its partnerships to deploy even more models for its users and employees. Its teams' expertise in integrating AI products will allow it to capitalize on the power of this revolution, particularly for content editing, moderation, and operational efficiency.
In the meantime, Dailymotion plans to capitalize on the lessons learned from this project, lessons that Noémie Bocquet readily shares: "Avoiding perfectionism and moving quickly to test has been a successful approach. This strategy allowed us to rapidly validate the solution's added value while minimizing operational and financial risks. It's an effective innovation model that we highly recommend to any company seeking to capitalize on AI's potential."
Avoiding perfectionism and moving quickly to test has been a successful approach. This strategy allowed us to rapidly validate the solution's added value while minimizing operational and financial risks. It's an effective innovation model that we highly recommend to any company seeking to capitalize on AI's potential.
Noémie Bocquet
VP of Data & AI Products at Dailymotion
Founded in 2005, Dailymotion is a multimedia content hosting, viewing, and sharing platform, and a subsidiary of Groupe Canal+. With over 400 million monthly users and more than 4 billion views, the company operates in 190 countries.
Industry: Media
Location: Paris, France
Products: Google Cloud, BigQuery, Vertex AI
