AI search

Ordinary Spotlight matches characters. AI search matches meaning, so “that article about rendering on the server” can find a bookmark whose title contains none of those words.

What it needs

You need all three:

1. A Pro license.
2. Your own OpenAI or Gemini key, set up under the gear → AI Assistant. See Bringing your own key.
3. An index. Same panel: AI Search Index → Build index. It shows progress as n / total indexed.

Building the index is a one-off pass over everything you have saved. With Gemini it is free; with OpenAI it is paid, and the panel says roughly what it costs.

Change provider later and the button becomes Rebuild for openai (or gemini). You have to rebuild before AI search works again.

Using it

Open Spotlight and look at the bottom right for an AI button. It only appears once a key is configured.

1. Click AI to arm it. Without a license the button shows a padlock and opens the upgrade dialog instead.
2. Type a question in your own words.
3. Press Enter. Ordinary search runs as you type; AI search runs only when you ask for it.

The footer hint changes from select to search while Enter would run the query, and back once results are in, so a second Enter opens the highlighted result instead of searching again.

Reranking

The AI panel has Use LLM to rerank AI search results, on by default.

• On: results are reordered by the model, each with a short reason next to it. This adds a second or three, and one request to your provider per search.
• Off: results come back instantly, with no explanations.

Build the index first

With no index, AI search does not refuse. It falls back to the first 30 items on your board, ranked against your question if reranking is on and in plain board order if it is off. Either way those 30 were picked without reading your question. If AI search seems to ignore half of what you have saved, build the index.