Empathy Co

Empathy.co is a search and product discovery platform built for online retail. It combines AI search with keyword search, and it is aimed at stores that want to keep control of their data. Rather than sending shopper queries to a third-party provider, Empathy offers its technology as Self-managed Components that a retailer can run, extend and own in its preferred cloud environment. The company says it runs a private, self-hosted cloud under EU governance.

What it does

The core product is the search box and results experience on a commerce site. Empathy describes a unified index that blends AI-driven semantic search with traditional keyword matching, so a shopper who types a vague, conversational query and one who types an exact product name can both land on relevant items. On top of that sit generative features, such as prompts that enrich the search experience and an AI Mode for more conversational discovery. The company also publishes work on factual accuracy and explainability, showing why a given result appeared, which matters when merchandisers need to trust and tune what the engine returns.

Empathy has published research and models on named-entity recognition for product catalogues, including GLiNER-based work for books and groceries and intent detection built on open-source language models. In practice this kind of model helps the engine understand that a query contains a brand, a size or a category, and route it to the right products.

Privacy and ownership

Privacy is the main way Empathy sets itself apart. It runs a related product, Visible Privacy, for consent and privacy-regulation compliance. The self-managed approach also means the retailer decides where data lives and which models are used, instead of depending on a large external platform. For European retailers working under strict data rules, that can be a deciding factor.

Who it is for

The product is aimed at medium and large retailers. The site names large grocery and fashion groups among its customers and says more than 3,000 brands use it. It is not a plug-in for a hobby shop. Expect an enterprise sales process, integration work with your catalogue and front end, and pricing set by agreement rather than a public price list.

Things to consider

Teams evaluating Empathy should check how much engineering effort the self-managed components need, which cloud providers are supported, and how the AI features are measured against their current search. The demo and the customer stories on the site are a reasonable starting point before you ask for a technical session. As with any search replacement, plan a controlled A/B test on live traffic before switching fully, and agree with the vendor up front which conversion and zero-result metrics will decide success.