AI-Enabled Apps
Practical Uses of AI in Applications
Jennifer Reif
jennifer.reif@neo4j.com
@JMHReif
github.com/JMHReif
jmhreif.com
linkedin.com/in/jmhreif
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Who is Jennifer Reif?
• Continuous learner
• Conference speaker
• Tech blogger
• Other: geek
Developer Advocate, Neo4j
Jennifer Reif
jennifer.reif@neo4j.com
@JMHReif
github.com/JMHReif
jmhreif.com
linkedin.com/in/jmhreif
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Artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, or other data
using generative models, often in response to prompts.
Generative AI models learn the patterns and structure of their input
training data and then generate new data that has similar
characteristics.
Generative Arti
fi
cial Intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generative_arti
fi
cial_intelligence
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LLMs
What they’re good at…
• General information
• Public domain knowledge
• Historical data
• Creative / arts
• Human assistant
• Task delegation
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LLMs
What they’re not so good at…
• Lacking most recent data
• Not always natural language
• Language complexities, sarcasm, emotion
• No sources
• Hallucinations / Temperature
• IP, bias, privacy
RAG
Retrieval Augmented Generation
• Retrieval
• Data retrieved from database
• Augmented
• Augments response with facts
• Generation
• Response in natural language
Prompt + Relevant Information
LLM API LLM
Chat API
User
Database Search
Prompt Response
Relevant Results
/ Documents
2
3
1
Database
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Agentic Workflow
Architecture
• Uses “agents”/tools
• LLM determines next step
• Which tool/external source should be called
• Uses result from tool as context
Prompt + Relevant Information
LLM API LLM
Chat API
User
Tool
Prompt Response
Relevant Results
/ Documents
2
3
1
Source info
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Explainable AI
• How did the LLM get this answer?
• Grounding LLM answer with veri
fi
ed data
With RAG + LLM
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Other benefits
With non-LLM data
• Information that LLM doesn’t have
• More recent than LLM cuto
ff
• Private data
• Ensure accurate, non-con
fl
icting data
• Reduce hallucinations
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RAG needs curated data…
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Private data set examples
Probably data that already exists
• Lessons learned
• Project docs
• Knowledge base / support docs
• Onboarding / internal processes
• Performance reviews / internal surveys
• Job applicants / resumés
• Internal trainings, videos, other content
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Vectors and Data Sources
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How do we use vectors?
https://www.mathsisfun.com/algebra/vectors.html
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Example
Kings and Queens
king − man + woman ≈ queen
king
man wom
an
1
king
man
wom
an
2
queen?
3
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Benefits
Of using vectors
• Embed nearly any type of data
• Image, document, product, text, video, audio, sentence, word
• Can be used to feed all sorts of architectures
• Non-keyword search
• Variety of criteria for search
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Similarity search
• Expensive queries (compare to every vector)
• Approximate nearest neighbor (k-ANN)
• Example: Library
• Book classi
fi
cation - author vs location of plot
• Smaller search set = smaller retrieval time!
Vector indexes
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
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Real-World Uses
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Chatbot
GDS Documentation
• LLM hallucinating answers
• Provide LLM with updated info
• Assist users with learning GDS library
• Backed by knowledge graph of documentation text
• Streamlit + LangChain app
• Log conversations with data
• Improvements to responses!
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Benefits
• Log conversations alongside grounding data
• How LLM/users interact with documents
• Monitor performance and improve
• Analyze data: Algorithms + Visualization
• Surface data quality issues in text
• Chunk outliers or overlaps
• Collapse duplicates
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Logging and Visualizing Conversations
With a graph database
Graph of an actual conversation between an Agent Neo user and the ChatGPT-4 LLM.
Context Documents are labeled with their GDS Community.
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Semantic Search
Movie search
• Search movie based on di
ff
erent criteria
• General theme or setting or plot?
• Net
fl
ix search doesn’t work like this
• Includes agentic approach (UI, trailers, etc)
github.com/datastax/movies_plus_plus
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Benefits
• Gather multiple data sources into one interface
• Search on variety of criteria
• Augment traditional search and LLM
• Log interactions, likes, paths
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Recommendations
Product (e.g. Book)
• Search based on smaller criteria
• Follow user journey for what to try next
• Cross-sell
• Use similarity from “unrelated” criteria
Photo by Carl Raw on Unsplash
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Benefits
• Combine di
ff
erent data sources
• User preferences/lifestyles, order system, supply chain, etc
• Cross-pollinate product categories
• Customer 360, real-time markets, trends
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Other use cases
• Fraud/Anomaly detection
• Monitoring/Logging activities
• Bugs and
fi
xes
• Dependencies
• Impact
• Supply chain
• Operations
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Nothing is a silver bullet
• Can’t guarantee a consistent answer
• Prompt engineering
• Context window limits
LLM is (of sorts) mind of its own
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Let’s code!
Vector search
Data
results
Prompt
phrase+data