A system includes a processor and a memory storing software code configured to support semantic content searching, one or more machine learning (ML) model(s) trained to translate between images and text, and a search engine populated with content representations output by the ML model(s). The software code is executed to receive a semantic content search query describing a searched content, generate, using the ML model(s) and the semantic content search query, a content representation corresponding to the searched content, and compare, using the search engine, the generated content representation with the content representations populating the search engine to identify one or more candidate matches for the searched content. The software code is further executed to identify one or more content unit(s) each corresponding respectively to one of the candidate matches, and output a query response identifying at least one of the identified content unit(s).