The Capybara Among Alligators: How We Improved Pics.io with AI Visual Search

"Capybara among alligators"—that's what Anton, our Head of Marketing, said when we started brainstorming how to showcase our new AI visual search feature. But what does a capybara have to do with DAM tools?

Anton put it simply: 'When we ask the system to find that meme with a capybara in our massive asset library, the search tool can’t just rely on descriptions or metadata. It needs to get exactly what we’re asking for and what should be in the picture; it has to 'think' like a human.' And that’s the magic—Pics.io's visual search is way smarter than the usual tools. It gets requests like 'capybara among alligators' or 'that picture with the teal background.' It’s like having the perfect assistant with a sharp memory, who understands you at a glance.

Why We Decided to Upgrade Pics.io

We, the Pics.io team, have been around since 2012—twelve years of making digital asset management (DAM) as seamless and efficient as possible. Over the years, we’ve gathered tons of insights on how our users interact with their libraries, and we’ve always had a keen interest in cutting-edge technologies like Machine Learning aka Artificial Intelligence.

When AI tools first emerged, our engineers were excited to explore them. But at first, it was just curiosity—we weren’t sure how these tools could make Pics.io faster, smarter, and more user-friendly.

Then our product management team stepped in. They told us, “Users are struggling with creating good descriptions for every asset in their massive libraries. Can we help them?” That’s when we realized—AI could be the solution! We introduced a feature that generates high-quality descriptions for assets, and it quickly became a hit among our users.

So, we asked ourselves, 'How can we make our DAM even better?' The answer was clear: AI could revolutionize search. We saw an opportunity to use AI not only to speed up the search process and make it more intuitive and powerful, but also to improve the entire paradigm of how our DAM works.

Bringing AI-Powered Search to Life

Once we committed to AI, we got to work. Our first step was understanding what our users needed most. We listened to your feedback, identified pain points, and figured out the features that would make a real difference in your daily workflow. We noticed that not every asset in a library has full descriptions or metadata, and often users need to find something based on how they remember it looks, not how it was named or tagged.

Integrating AI into our existing search wasn’t just about adding some code—it was about rethinking how our DAM system should work. We wanted the AI to do more than just match keywords. We wanted it to understand context, recognize patterns, and even suggest related assets.

Here’s how our developers describe the AI visual search: “For instance, if you search for ‘a lot of wild animals,’ the system will identify images with wild animals, even if the metadata doesn’t mention them. Similarly, a search for ‘big wild cat’ might bring up images of lions, tigers, or even bears and elephants if the AI considers them relevant.”

Making the Search Smarter

With our new visual search, you can type something like "capybara riding an alligator" or "red dress on a white background," and the system will scan the entire library to find exactly what you’re looking for. No more guessing file names or manually tagging every asset—our AI does the heavy lifting for you.

Behind the scenes, there’s a lot happening. The AI considers user-defined metadata, image content, technical details from the file, search intent, and even language nuances like synonyms. All these elements work together to bring you the closest match to your search, without the headache of spending months tagging, organizing, renaming, and doing all that tedious stuff nobody wants to deal with.

As we improved Pics.io, we often thought about a company that had to hire someone just to organize and describe files in their system. It was a full-time job because the library was massive, and the whole team relied on it. We hope our visual search will make stories like that a thing of the past. With AI, you don’t need to meticulously describe and organize files anymore. Our visual search can find what you need, even if the file is named something like "new file (202)" or "10293847565"—no relevant descriptions required. The system "sees" the files because we’ve taught it to "see."

Descriptions, especially in large teams, aren’t the perfect solution for managing assets. If you ask ten people to describe the same image, each one will do it a little differently. Take the example of a capybara resting among alligators. One person might say, "It’s a capybara among crocodiles," another might call it "a funny animal picture," and someone else might mistake the capybara for a hamster and say, "A hamster hanging out with alligators." These differences in thinking lead to different word choices and descriptions, which is inevitable. No matter how well we organize and describe assets, if the search relies only on descriptions and names, our team might still struggle. Every new team member will bring their own approach and will need to learn how to navigate the system. We can’t just hand over a massive media archive and expect others to know how to find what they need.

With the visual search we’ve implemented in Pics.io, things are much easier. The AI acts like an assistant that "sees" and remembers every asset. The system doesn’t require you to learn its "language"—it already understands your mindset. It can even handle vague searches like "that blue picture" or "two guys in ties standing together.

What’s Next?

Bringing Pics.io visual search to life wasn’t easy, but we were determined to make sure our AI could handle the wide variety of file types and metadata that our users work with. That’s why we’re already planning our next steps—how can we make this even better?

If you haven’t tried our DAM features yet, now’s the perfect time. Visual search is currently in beta, and we’d love for you to test it out. Just reach out to us at support@pics.io, and we’ll get you set up. Dive in, see how it works, and let us know what you think. We’re always eager to hear your feedback and keep improving our platform to meet your needs.

Did you enjoy this article? Give Pics.io a try — or book a demo with us, and we'll be happy to answer any of your questions.