# Azure Cognitive Search

>[Azure Cognitive Search](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/search-what-is-azure-search) (formerly known as `Azure Search`) is a cloud search service that gives developers infrastructure, APIs, and tools for building a rich search experience over private, heterogeneous content in web, mobile, and enterprise applications.

>Search is foundational to any app that surfaces text to users, where common scenarios include catalog or document search, online retail apps, or data exploration over proprietary content. When you create a search service, you'll work with the following capabilities:
>- A search engine for full text search over a search index containing user-owned content
>- Rich indexing, with lexical analysis and optional AI enrichment for content extraction and transformation
>- Rich query syntax for text search, fuzzy search, autocomplete, geo-search and more
>- Programmability through REST APIs and client libraries in Azure SDKs
>- Azure integration at the data layer, machine learning layer, and AI (Cognitive Services)


## Installation and Setup

See [set up instructions](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/search/search-create-service-portal).


## Retriever

See a [usage example](/docs/integrations/retrievers/azure_cognitive_search).

```python
from langchain.retrievers import AzureCognitiveSearchRetriever
```
