A regional law firm with more than 120 attorneys relied heavily on its website for lead generation, but its keyword-based search experience prevented users from finding relevant content. Searches using natural language often returned poor or zero results because the system depended on exact keyword matches.
The issue was not a lack of content. The firm had hundreds of articles, practice area pages, attorney bios, and case studies. The real challenge was content discovery.
Visus implemented a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) solution using Microsoft Azure AI Search and Azure OpenAI Service to create an AI-powered search experience embedded directly into the website.
The solution used hybrid retrieval (semantic + vector search) to better understand user intent, even when search phrasing differed from article titles or keywords. AI-generated responses remained grounded in firm content and included citations linking users directly to source pages. Incremental indexing also ensured new content became searchable within minutes of publication.
To support trust and governance, the platform incorporated Azure AI Content Safety and legal guardrails to keep responses accurate and appropriately framed.
The results were significant:
- Top search-result click-through rates increased by approximately 3x
- Search bounce rates decreased by roughly 45%
- Time on site for search users increased by approximately 70%
- Qualified contact-form submissions from search sessions increased by nearly 55%
This initiative reinforced an important lesson: modern site search is no longer just a keyword problem. It is an understanding problem.
RAG transforms content libraries into intelligent discovery engines by delivering grounded, trustworthy answers that help users quickly find the information they need.