Powerset (company)

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Powerset

Founded	San Francisco, U.S. (2005)
Headquarters	San Francisco, California , U.S.
Parent	Microsoft (as of August 1, 2008)

Powerset was an American company based in San Francisco, California, that, in 2006, was developing a natural language search engine for the Internet.^[1] On July 1, 2008, Powerset was acquired by Microsoft for an estimated $100 million (~$139 million in 2023).^[2]

Powerset was working on building a natural language search engine that could find targeted answers to user questions (as opposed to keyword based search). For example, when confronted with a question like "Which U.S. state has the highest income tax?", conventional search engines ignore the question phrasing and instead do a search on the keywords "state", "highest", "income", and "tax". Powerset on the other hand, attempts to use natural language processing to understand the nature of the question and return pages containing the answer.

The company was in the process of "building a natural language search engine that reads and understands every sentence on the Web".^[3] The company has licensed natural language technology from PARC, the former Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.^[4]

On May 11, 2008, the company unveiled a tool for searching a fixed subset of English Wikipedia using conversational phrases rather than keywords.^[5]

1. Acquisition by Microsoft: One significant milestone in Powerset's history was its acquisition by Microsoft on July 1, 2008, for an estimated $100 million. This acquisition was part of Microsoft's broader strategy to enhance its search capabilities and compete more effectively with other search engine providers, particularly Google.^[6]
2. Natural Language Search Engine: Powerset's primary focus was on developing a natural language search engine capable of understanding and interpreting user queries in a more human-like manner. Instead of simply matching keywords, Powerset aimed to comprehend the meaning behind the words, allowing for more accurate and contextually relevant search results.
3. Technology and Partnerships: Powerset had licensed natural language technology from PARC, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. This technology likely played a crucial role in the development of Powerset's NLP capabilities.^[7]
4. Wikipedia Search Tool: In May 2008, Powerset unveiled a search tool that allowed users to search a fixed subset of English Wikipedia using conversational phrases rather than traditional keywords. This demonstrated the potential of Powerset's NLP technology in providing more precise and relevant search results.