In accordance with an aspect, there is provided a system and method for electronic communications that involves machine learning and natural language processing for contact relationship discovery, ranking and retrieval. In accordance with an aspect, there is provided a system and device that discovers contacts related to user search terms, quantitatively measures and ranks the strength between contact relationships according to a score calculated by natural language processing and machine learning. The system generates visual effects to present recommendations to the user with multiple alternate route options to establish relationships between contacts.