Why AI-Powered Search Is Core to Licensing the Internet

Searching the internet to surface the best shots that fit your creative brief is no easy task. That’s why Catch+Release just launched its new AI-powered search, designed to help any brand, agency, or production team find the best-fit content for any marketing campaign. We’re impressed with the growth of our C+R creator community, launched in Q1, 2023, so we prioritized turning on search as we see an uptick in the volume of shots indexed from our community, now stretching above 300k and counting.

Faster Results: Shots That Fit

Internet search has been around since the 90s, and once Google showed up, it became essential to how we navigate the day-to-day of our modern world. Of course, text-based search is about delivering the most relevant information fast. However, searching for visual imagery and video content is less predictable and cruder in the results it returns - it certainly isn’t adequate for searching for visual content in a way that conveys the emotion and feeling storytellers are looking for in their next project. This is primarily due to two issues: firstly, the nature of those business models is to monetize through engaging ads along that search journey. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn have mastered this job, amassing billions of users and multi-millions of paying subscribers, and they are successful in solving a distinct set of needs.

The second issue with the conventional model of searching is that these search engines store and access information with tokens, or tags, of what is in the piece of content. They are speedy and accurate at retrieving information if the tokens match up precisely with the search terms; however, mismatches between these tokens and the content mean they will miss the nuance that most of us are looking for when searching for engaging, authentic content.

By contrast, Catch+Release is focused on connecting our users with the most relevant, licensable content to fit their brief and creatively inspire them on their next journey. To do this, we had to think differently. The last couple of years have seen the entire industry embrace and improve on AI, especially generative AI, at a pace that is hard to comprehend. When most of us think of AI, we think of generative AI, whether it is Large Language models like ChatGPT, Bard, or Claude or the fantastical imagery that comes out of models like Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or Dalle. While all of the work produced by these models is incredible, we here at Catch+Release believe the best content is human-generated and authentic. So when it came to building AI into our product, it only made sense to use this powerful capability to connect the storytellers searching for that perfect shot with creators in a meaningful and relevant way. To do this, we used an AI model that can deeply connect the semantic nature of text and the detailed nuances of our platform's incredible content. In itself, this is a tremendous technical achievement, and Catch+Release doesn’t only have a team of highly talented engineers but also a team of curators who are experts at finding the best content the Internet has to offer. The union of these engineering and curation rockstars is our true superpower.

Creative Teams Seek Results, Inspiration, and a Little Surprise 😉

Catch+Release’s in-house curation team is exceptionally savvy when searching against a customer’s brief. It’s like mining for content gems, often deeply buried in the Internet. Our curators know how to cleverly search to find exactly what you want and what’s useful. In fact, deciphering the underlying concept and searching for that widely instead of searching with blinders on for a singular articulation of the concept is a helpful trick as long as it remains central to the topic or theme.

A recent example — a client was looking for shots of people trying on a particular article of clothing, which needed to be a specific color, the angle must obfuscate facial identity, and there must be vertical movement in the frame. Our curators expanded the search in playful ways that were still in alignment with the core demographic to provide more options for the storyteller to consider. We're always learning how to improve our search skills from this team that’s been practicing the art of content curation for over nine years with amazing results. The point is that initial searches are rarely slam dunks; curators fine-tune as they dig down to find those gems hidden in the stack. Content that resonates with the creative brief can feel like it’s nestled deep in the bedrock. Once filtered or lifted up, your diligence can yield a goldmine with some unexpected surprises.

What it’s like to dig for content gems on the internet

Credit: Elizabeth Mandeville

Search, Filter, Adjust

A search for “fruit stands” populates results with a range of shots that look pretty on-point with this initial search term.

A further drill-down might be “strawberry fruit”, which delivers shots with only strawberries.

Or, more specific, might be “people eating strawberry fruit,” which yields a more precise result.

Iterating on the initial search term yields more precise results. Some teams prefer to cast a wide net at the outset. The results will often inspire you and, possibly take the brief in a new direction. Other teams might have a very specific campaign in mind, and so they know exactly what they want. In those cases, it’s all about speed-to-finding-the-gems or taking a more windy path.

Search Is Nuanced; Not Without Limitations. Be Surprised.

Sometimes you’re looking for a specific tone or mood such as “happy”, “sad”, “elated” and so on. That’s usually more difficult to surface immediately. Catch+Release’s AI-powered search is powerful, even with filters on mood terms or lighting. Let’s try a search for “Winter”, a seasonal time of year that yields a good range, mostly depicting shots with snow, landscapes and that cozy feel when you need to wear warm clothes.

Let’s take this term a step further and look for “Winter Gloom” which brings back shots with darker tones, have a more dreary, distant feel with some showing rain and fog. This is definitely closer to the tonality I’m seeking.

A One-Stop Shop for Discovery

The benefit of having such a fast, accurate search capability is that it saves a ton of time and frustration, and you avoid having to search across each social platform – TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook etc. – and adjusting your approach each time. You also bypass irrelevant results and unnecessary ads. Gain precious time back to focus on the most important aspects of the creative process, including production, which ultimately fast-tracks campaign execution.

Content That’s Licensable

For the creators in the Catch+Release community, the content is not only relevant but it’s available to license because most creators have previously licensed shots through our engine. We’re bringing to bear a set of assets with a high probability of getting licensed because they are a trusted source. During the search process and while adding to a collection, you immediately see the licensability score for each shot from the Creator community. This speeds up the license clearance process, indicating a fast turnaround if you choose to request for usage.

Catch+Release gets you fast, relevant results so you can execute your campaigns with confidence, because you get to feature amazing gems in your campaigns. If you want to kick start a project now, we encourage you to ask our curation team, who will quickly populate a collection with assets for you to review. This gives you a head start, and you can then create any number of collections from that point.

In the meantime, start your content discovery journey now and search away. See something you love, create a free account, and begin building collections.