How inference works
Signals in, personas out, your catalogue ranked against them.
Most search and recommendation tools answer, because answering is all they can do. They rank something for any query, including the queries your catalogue has no data to resolve.
PULSE does two things those do not.
Infers in-session
Persona accumulates from behaviour within a single visit, with no identity and no history.
Knows when it cannot answer
If the catalogue cannot resolve a requirement, that is a reportable fact rather than a bad ranking.
The loop
A signal arrives
A category view, a price filter, a device class. See Signals.
The persona updates
Each signal moves a set of persona scores. Scores decay, so a session that changes direction is followed rather than averaged.
Products are scored against it
search ranks products you pass in. rankedCatalog ranks the catalogue already synced to PULSE.
Exposure is recorded
What was actually shown is what makes ranking quality measurable later. See
exposure.
What it is not
PULSE is not a PIM and it replaces nothing you already run. It reads your catalogue and ranks against it. If a field is missing everywhere, ranking cannot invent it, and saying so is the point.