Custom proximity search, a new feature in SQL Server 2012 Full-Text Search, is facilitated using the NEAR operator.

A new SQL Server 2025 feature lets organizations run vector-based semantic searches on their own data, connecting to local or cloud-hosted AI models without relying on massive general-purpose LLMs.

Microsoft is making available previews of two new Azure services: Its DocumentDB NoSQL service and its full-text search service built on Elasticsearch.

At Build 2025, Microsoft announced the public preview of SQL Server 2025. SQL Server 2025 now has AI directly integrated into the database engine for improved search.