FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ARLINGTON, VA — June 5, 2025 — Higher Logic, the leading provider of community engagement and marketing automation solutions, just launched the latest innovation in a series of AI enhancements for its platform: the AI Search Assistant.
This feature is designed to transform how associations and organizations manage and access their collective knowledge, delivering faster, more accurate answers to member inquiries while enhancing overall community engagement.
Integrated into Higher Logic Thrive Community, Platform and Online Community, and included with those community subscriptions, the AI Search Assistant employs Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) technology to provide conversational responses sourced directly from community discussions, uploaded documents, and official organizational content.
“A lot of people are familiar with LLMs and AI chatbots. But Higher Logic is really focusing on a specific facet of this technology rather than just chasing the crowd,” says Aaron Novelle, Senior Product Manager at Higher Logic. “Using RAG, enables us to utilize resources that are not commonly available on the greater web where those regular LLMs are trained, meaning our AI Search Assistant can give answers that are specific and nuanced to the organization using it. When clients activate this via the AI Settings Panel in their online community,, it indexes their data and content and provides answers solely based on those trustworthy resources. And the data is entirely insulated, which means associations can feel secure knowing their data is safe from being utilized in a large company’s training model.”
Key Features of the AI Search Assistant:
- Conversational Search Experience: Users receive direct, summarized answers with links to original sources, eliminating the need to sift through extensive search results.
- Human Collaboration: If the assistant cannot fully address a query, it prompts users with our “Ask Your Fellow Humans” feature, inviting members to engage with the community by drafting a discussion post, facilitating human interaction and collective problem-solving.
- Data Privacy and Security: The chatbot is powered by Azure OpenAI or IBM watsonx, which have industry leading security measures in place. This helps ensure that every request is processed securely and guarantees that the AI does not learn from your questions or the content that was contributed to the community.
- References and Credit: When the chatbot retrieves relevant documents for the community, it will provide references to the original sources. This ensures transparency and allows members to see where the information comes from.
“One of the dangers of AI in the future is the possibility of knowledge degradation. With so much new content on the internet being AI-generated, and broad spectrum LLMs training their new models on this content, you end up with this strange ‘snake-eating-it’s-own-tail’ situation and the quality of responses drastically decreases,” says Aaron. “Associations have the opportunity to be bastions of knowledge – repositories of safe understanding in a world that needs humans in the loop. Higher Logic’s AI features are designed to help associations keep up and use AI in a safe and controlled fashion.”
For more information about Higher Logic’s AI Search Assistant, including a walkthrough and podcast episode with Aaron, visit higherlogic.com/ai-launch-kit/.
About Higher Logic
Higher Logic is an industry-leading, human-focused engagement platform that delivers powerful online communities and communication tools to engage members and customers at every stage of their journey. With over a decade of experience in building personalized and scalable engagement, Higher Logic provides robust platforms and strategic services to organizations worldwide.
Media Contact: Dave Bornman, Chief Marketing Officer, dbornmann@higherlogic.com