This document describes how to use project-based semantic search capabilities offered by Dataplex Search.
Semantic search, powered by Gemini, simplifies data discovery without the need for complex search syntax. It supports natural language queries, so you can search for resources using everyday language. This enhances accessibility for users with varying levels of technical expertise.
Similar to keyword search, semantic search emphasizes the discovery of resources by analyzing the metadata associated with the resources within an organization. Semantic search relies on technical metadata for data discovery. It also supports user-defined metadata, such as aspects. Semantic search focuses on enhancing recall rather than precision.
Sign up for Preview
To sign up for Preview, your Google account representative must submit a request by filling out the sign-up form. After you submit the form, the Dataplex team will contact you with next steps.
If semantic search introduces any challenges to your usage workloads or processes, provide feedback. You can send your questions and feedback to dataplex-semantic-search-feedback@google.com.
Pricing
Semantic search in Dataplex is offered free of charge during Preview.
Limitations
Only entries in the following regions are indexed. In other words, when you use semantic search, you see results only from the following regions in your projects:
- Iowa (
us-central1
) - London (
europe-west2
) - US multi-region (
us
) - EU multi-region (
eu
)
- Iowa (
Semantic search in Dataplex is only available in the Google Cloud console.
You can search for resources only in projects where you have enabled semantic search.
Semantic search doesn't support time-based filters. For example, queries like
Show all the tables created in the past month
might not return precise results.Semantic search focuses only on discovering data. It doesn't address queries related to data exploration, such as
Why is my sales volume down?
orWhat are the outliers in my transactions?
.
Required roles
When you search for resources in Dataplex using natural language, Dataplex automatically and seamlessly applies the same permissions you have for keyword search.
Search for resources using semantic search
In the Google Cloud console, go to the Dataplex Search page.
To turn on semantic search, click the Query in natural language toggle.
In the search field, enter your query in natural language. The following are some sample queries:
Show me the datasets that contain taxi information
Find data on vaccine distribution across different countries
Get tables with historical temperature data for major US cities
Search for hurricane tracking and storm activity datasets
US population data by state
Review the search results.
Optional: To view the details of any entry in the search results, click the entry.
What's next
- Learn how to analyze with BigQuery data canvas.
- Learn how to search for resources in Dataplex using syntax and filters.