Help Centre

AI search

Let buyers search in their own words, like "red bike under 200 near the beach", and have AI turn it into the right category, location and price filters.

Buyers don’t always search the way your filters are built. Many type what they want as a sentence: toyota hilux under 30,000 in Cordoba or two bedroom flat near the beach. With AI search on, your marketplace reads that sentence and turns it into your own filters: the right category, the right location, a price range and the few words that matter. Buyers get results that fit, without opening a single filter.

AI search works with the Nova theme, the default for new marketplaces. It’s included at no extra cost.

What buyers see

  1. A buyer types a sentence in the search box in your site’s header, or in the big search on your home page, and presses Enter.
  2. After a moment, the results page opens with the filters already chosen. A Searching for bar at the top shows what was understood, for example the category, the town, Up to 200 and the words searched for.
  3. Each item in the bar has a ×. Clicking it removes that filter, so buyers can widen the search with one click.
  4. Search as typed runs the sentence exactly as the buyer wrote it, without AI, if they prefer that.

Short searches work as they always have. AI only steps in when the search looks like a sentence: three words or more, or a number in it (a price, a size, a year). A search for bike or iPhone case runs as typed. AI also stays out of the way when the buyer has already picked a category or location in the search form.

AI only chooses from your own categories and locations. It never invents a filter, and it works in your site’s language and currency.

Switch AI search on or off

  1. In the admin panel, go to Settings › General.
  2. In the Search section, switch AI search on or off.
  3. Click Save changes.

AI search is on from the start on newer marketplaces that use Nova. On older marketplaces it starts off: switch it on here when you’re ready. The switch only shows while your site uses the Nova theme; see Choose and change your theme.

If the switch is greyed out with Set by Yclas support for your site., our team has set it for you. Contact support if you’d like it changed.

When few listings match

AI search is built to help buyers find something rather than nothing, even on a young marketplace:

  • Empty categories and locations are skipped. If the search names a category or town that has no listings yet, the search uses the category or location above it when that has listings. Otherwise it leaves that filter out and searches with the rest.
  • The words are dropped before the filters. A listing has to contain every word searched for. If nothing matches them in the chosen category or location, the site shows everything else that matches and says so: No listing had “…”, so these are all that match the rest.
  • No unrelated results. If nothing matches and there’s no category or location left to go by, buyers see an honest empty page with Search as typed, rather than every listing on your site.

The more listings you have in the right categories and locations, the better AI search works. See Categories and Locations.

Monthly allowance

Each marketplace gets 1,000 AI searches a month, counted per calendar month. Repeats don’t use it up: the same search typed again on your site the same day gives the same answer for free.

If your site uses up its searches, or AI can’t answer for any reason, search keeps working as normal: the buyer’s words are searched as typed, as on a site without AI search. Nothing breaks and buyers see no error. The allowance starts again on the first day of the next month.

Updated 16 October 2026 · Suggest an edit