Delectable AI: Not Just Search — The Intelligence Behind Every Query

The 11-Stage AI Pipeline

Click "Run Query" to watch a real query flow through every AI stage. Each stage transforms, filters, or re-ranks the results.

Simulated User Query

Shopper: Health-Conscious Mom

Propensity: organic=0.8, gluten_free=0.6

Mission: Quick Meal (Cluster 6)

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User Query Received

Input

Raw natural language from the shopper

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Intent Classification

GEMINI 2.0

Gemini classifies the query into one of 8 intent types and extracts structured parameters.

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Query Understanding & Cleaning

NLP

Extract food concepts, detect false-friends, simplify compound queries, identify category hints.

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Shopper Profile Prefetch

BIGQUERY

Parallel load of propensity scores, virtual pantry, household graph, and purchase history.

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Vertex AI Commerce Search

VERTEX AI

Semantic search across 70K+ enriched products. Over-fetches to allow for dietary filtering downstream.

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Relevance Filter

FILTER

Stemming, false-friend detection, and content-word overlap scoring. Removes irrelevant matches.

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Dietary Hard Filter

SAFETY

Enforces dietary restrictions with AND logic. Safety-critical for allergies — never shows non-compliant products.

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Health Propensity Rerank

PERSONALIZATION

Reranks products based on individual shopper's 8-propensity profile and health consciousness score.

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History Boost & Freshness Rerank

AFFINITY

Boosts familiar brands and fresh produce. Uses purchase history and shelf-life data.

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Session Diversity Filter

DIVERSITY

Prevents showing products the shopper already saw, selected, or dismissed in this session.

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Personalized Results Delivered

OUTPUT

Final ranked, filtered, personalized product set streamed to the shopper via SSE.

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Flagship demo · The Perfect Cart in 490ms

From one intent to a complete basket.

A shopper types one sentence — "Friday family dinner, gluten-free, $80 budget." Twelve AI stages later, a 16-item basket is assembled, pre-substituted, dietary-verified, under budget, ready for checkout. Click "Build Cart" to watch every stage.

Shopper Intent

Household: 4 people · weeknight-cook propensity 0.78

Virtual pantry: rice, olive oil, salt, garlic

Catalog: Giant Eagle · 70k SKUs enriched

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Shopper Intent Received

Input

Raw natural-language utterance from the chat surface or voice agent.

0ms

Intent Parse & Entity Extraction

GEMINI 2.5 FLASH

Gemini classifies the intent (build_basket_for_occasion) and extracts every structured constraint in one call.

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Implicit Constraint Expansion

SHOPPER HG

Layer in household defaults the shopper didn't say: portion size, plate balance, weeknight prep window, allergen graph, kid-friendliness.

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Recipe Retrieval · Food HyperGraph

MEMGRAPH

Graph traversal across 142k canonical recipes filtered by dietary + occasion + prep-time. Returns top-K by household preference vector.

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Menu Composition

GEMINI PRO REASONING

Gemini Pro reasons across the top recipe + sides + drink + dessert. Balances macros and plate flow.

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Ingredient Resolution & Dedupe

FOOD HG

Recipes → canonical ingredients. Dedupe across courses (lemon shared across main + drink). Quantities scaled to head_count.

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Catalog Lookup

VERTEX RETAIL SEARCH

For each ingredient, semantic search against the grocer's 70k-SKU enriched catalog. Over-fetch ~3 candidates per ingredient for downstream selection.

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Dietary Enforcement

IA ALLERGEN GRAPH

Strict gluten-free filter using the IA allergen graph (not just label text — ingredient lineage). Drops false-friends like soy-sauce that contains wheat.

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Virtual Pantry Filter

BIGQUERY

Cross-reference against the household's inferred virtual pantry (purchase history + consumption model). Don't buy what they already have.

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Household Substitution Rules

SHOPPER HG

Apply household propensities: private-label vs brand, organic preference, preferred package sizes, out-of-stock fallbacks.

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Budget Knapsack

OPTIMIZER

Constrained optimization over the 32 candidates: maximize plate-completion score subject to $80 budget. Reserves a buffer for tax + adjustments.

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Basket Assembly & Aisle Order

PIM

Order line-items by store aisle flow (produce → meat → dairy → pantry → frozen → bakery) and attach pickup/delivery slot.

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✓

Perfect Cart Delivered

Output

16 items · $75.70 · gluten-free verified · $4.30 under budget · ready for one-tap checkout.

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Hardcoded Search vs. Delectable AI

Same query, same catalog. The left shows what a traditional keyword search returns. The right shows what our 11-stage AI pipeline produces.

Traditional Keyword Search

Text matching only

Query: "healthy dinner ideas"

Healthy Choice Café Steamers

Keyword match: "healthy" + "dinner"

$4.29

Healthy Dinner Napkins 50ct

⚠ Non-food match (keyword "dinner")

$3.49

Breaded Chicken Tenders

⚠ Contains gluten (not filtered)

$7.99

Stouffer's Dinner Entrées

Keyword match: "dinner"

$5.49

Ground Beef 80/20

Category boost: "dinner" → meats

$6.99

✗No personalization

✗No dietary filtering

✗No false-friend detection

✗No pantry awareness

✗Same results for every shopper

Delectable AI — 11-Stage Pipeline

Personalized, ranked, filtered

Query: "healthy dinner ideas"

Shopper: Health-Conscious Mom · organic=0.82 · gluten_free=0.61

Wild Caught Salmon Fillet

Health match: 94% · Pantry: not in stock · GF ✓

$12.49

organic high-protein omega-3

Organic Broccoli Crowns

Pantry: LOW (0.1) — replenishment nudge · Favorite brand

$3.99

organic gluten-free low pantry

Nature's Promise Organic Veggie Bowl

Sponsored · Health match: 88% · Dietary compliant ✓

$6.49

Same Query, Three Shoppers, Three Results

The strongest proof that this isn't hardcoded: the exact same query produces completely different results based on who is asking. Click each shopper to see their personalized results.

Query: "I need chicken for dinner tonight"

Ranked for: High-Protein Athlete

11 stages applied

Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (Value Pack)

52g protein/serving keto-friendly bulk size

$11.99

Grilled Chicken Strips (Ready to Eat)

38g protein quick prep

$8.49

Chicken Thighs (Bone-In)

28g protein high-fat/keto

$6.49

Why this ranking:

High-protein propensity (0.92) boosted bulk chicken breast to #1. Keto propensity (0.7) favored bone-in thighs. Breaded options filtered out (not keto-compliant). Value pack prioritized for stock-up mission pattern.

Same catalog. Same query. Three unique results.

A hardcoded search returns the same results for everyone. Delectable AI's 11-stage pipeline generates a unique ranking for every shopper based on their health profile, purchase history, pantry state, mission type, and active promotions.

The "Brain, Memory, Shelf" Architecture

Three interconnected systems work together on every query. Hover over each layer to see its components.

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The Brain

Reasoning Layer

▸ Gemini 2.0 Flash with function-calling
▸ 8-category intent classifier
▸ 17 available tools per request
▸ Multi-turn query refinement
▸ Retrieval guardrails (forces catalog lookup)

Latency: 500ms–2s per turn

Max iterations: 15

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The Memory

Intelligence Layer

▸ 8 propensity scores per shopper
▸ Virtual Pantry (decay-based stock)
▸ Household knowledge graph
▸ ~100K shopper profiles (1GB cache)
▸ 2.1M recipe embeddings

Backend: BigQuery + Redis

Profile TTL: 15 min cache

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The Shelf

Fulfillment Layer

▸ Vertex AI Commerce Search (70K+ SKUs)
▸ 11-stage ranking pipeline
▸ Food Intelligence enrichment
▸ RMN sponsored placements
▸ 7 channel-specific output formats

Backend: Vertex AI + BigQuery

End-to-end: ~1.2s

What Happens in 1.2 Seconds

0ms

Query

received

→

120ms

Intent + Profile

classified & loaded

→

620ms

Vertex Search

24 candidates

850ms

11-Stage Rank

filter + rerank

→

1050ms

Gemini

generate response

→

1200ms

Personalized

results streamed

Delectable AI

There Are 11 AI Stages Between
Your Query and the Results

The 11-Stage AI Pipeline

User Query Received

Intent Classification

Query Understanding & Cleaning

Shopper Profile Prefetch

Vertex AI Commerce Search

Relevance Filter

Dietary Hard Filter

Health Propensity Rerank

History Boost & Freshness Rerank

Session Diversity Filter

Sponsored Placement (RMN)

Personalized Results Delivered

From one intent to a complete basket.

Shopper Intent Received

Intent Parse & Entity Extraction

Implicit Constraint Expansion

Recipe Retrieval · Food HyperGraph

Menu Composition

Ingredient Resolution & Dedupe

Catalog Lookup

Dietary Enforcement

Virtual Pantry Filter

Household Substitution Rules

Budget Knapsack

Basket Assembly & Aisle Order

Perfect Cart Delivered

Hardcoded Search vs. Delectable AI

Traditional Keyword Search

Delectable AI — 11-Stage Pipeline

Same Query, Three Shoppers, Three Results

The "Brain, Memory, Shelf" Architecture

The Brain

The Memory

The Shelf

What Happens in 1.2 Seconds

There Are 11 AI Stages Between Your Query and the Results

The 11-Stage AI Pipeline

User Query Received

Intent Classification

Query Understanding & Cleaning

Shopper Profile Prefetch

Vertex AI Commerce Search

Relevance Filter

Dietary Hard Filter

Health Propensity Rerank

History Boost & Freshness Rerank

Session Diversity Filter

Sponsored Placement (RMN)

Personalized Results Delivered

From one intent to a complete basket.

Shopper Intent Received

Intent Parse & Entity Extraction

Implicit Constraint Expansion

Recipe Retrieval · Food HyperGraph

Menu Composition

Ingredient Resolution & Dedupe

Catalog Lookup

Dietary Enforcement

Virtual Pantry Filter

Household Substitution Rules

Budget Knapsack

Basket Assembly & Aisle Order

Perfect Cart Delivered

Hardcoded Search vs. Delectable AI

Traditional Keyword Search

Delectable AI — 11-Stage Pipeline

Same Query, Three Shoppers, Three Results

The "Brain, Memory, Shelf" Architecture

The Brain

The Memory

The Shelf

What Happens in 1.2 Seconds

There Are 11 AI Stages Between
Your Query and the Results