Introducing Forager

Introducing Forager

Yesterday we launched document upload & search. It's the first version of a powerful feature we're excited about!

This is the first step towards fulfilling two use cases many of you have asked for:

"My co-workers often message me when they're blocked and I have to either drop what I'm doing to answer them or leave them blocked while I finish what I'm doing."

With doc upload & search, you can write an FAQ, give it to Bud, and send a chat link with that Bud to co-workers.

"I have a big manual or other doc that I always reference / search through and Ctrl+F is not cutting it."

Now you can create a "Internal Doc Bud" or whatever you'd like to call it, upload the doc, and ask away.

Using Forager

  1. Create a new Bud (or click one of your existing Buds)
  2. Ensure "File Uploading" is checked
  3. Save your Bud
  4. Click the "File Upload" button above the chat box
  5. Pick your file — we support PDF, CSV, JSON, SRT, and all text formats (.txt, .md, code, etc.)
  6. Let our Knowledge Ingestor do its work
  7. When it finishes, ask away!
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Demo for Doc Upload & Search — (Tower Race was a game I put together before ChatSeed)

How it Works

  1. You upload your document
  2. Our Knowledge Ingestor splits it into small pieces
  3. Each piece is transformed into a semantic representation (i.e. the ideas / concepts, rather than the words)
  4. That semantic representation is tied to your Bud

    ...Later
  5. Ask your new Bud a question
  6. Our Forager module converts your query into semantic representations
  7. Forager searches your Bud's database
  8. Forager adds a "Knowledge Result" message
  9. Bud answers your question with real-world data!

What's Next?


We think it's important to be candid - this first version is basically document upload & search. With that said, this functionality is a building block to something greater. That means we can start iterating on usecases with the MANY ideas you all have. In addition to the usecases this enables today, we're excited about:

  • Bud Sharing: create a Bud and share it with co-workers (instead of just the chat) 🤝
  • Website Ingestion: instead of a doc, point it at a URL  🎉
  • Improved "Forager" Results: our first version is ok at answering some questions, but there is a lot of room for improvement. There are lots of pieces here and we'll be improving them all
  • Slack Integration: create a channel w/ specific Buds
  • Pass Through: if your Bud doesn't know, it can forward the request to you
  • Text Messaging: be able to share a phone number with employees or customers to chat with your new Bud
  • Learning Mode: tell Bud to remember something you told it. Great if you don't have a big FAQ doc to start with.  — (I'm personally very excited for pairing this with Pass Through and either Texting or Slack. You'll be able to set up the 1st use case (co-worker unblocking) in a few minutes, and it'll get better every day)

This is just the beginning of Forager. Please reach out if there's a specific usecase you have in mind!

(Written by Mihai Bulic, without the help of Bud)