Ask HN: Machine learning based search on my macOS with Spotlight?

So apparently now when I search something in my Macbook Air M1 with Spotlight it will AI-search all of my pictures as well. Is this new? Where can I read more about this feature? Is it possible to disable it? I have thousands upon thousands of pictures so I'm surprised, has macos scanned them all in the background? Or is it dynamically done on-search? (it feels too fast for the latter).

PS, for context, I'm building my own picture management app with Electron so I'm interested in anything like this, it's a feature I planned to add to have a one-up but seems like no longer.