---
title: "Describe a search in plain English"
description: "Click the + tab in the Database, describe your ideal customer in a sentence, and K3X builds the search for you."
url: https://help.k3x.ai/en/articles/68-describe-a-search-in-plain-english
collection: "Database: 200M+ records built in"
updated: 2026-10-04
language: en
---

# Describe a search in plain English

Click the + tab in the Database, describe your ideal customer in a sentence, and K3X builds the search for you.

You do not need to learn filters to search the Database. Click the **+** tab, type who you are looking for the way you would tell a colleague, and K3X turns it into a search.

## Steps

1.  Open the **Database** tab.
    
2.  Click the **+** tab next to your existing searches. It is labeled **Create search with AI**.
    
3.  The Command Center opens with a **Describe search** box ("Create a database search").
    
4.  Type your description and press Enter. Example: **roofing company owners in Georgia**.
    
5.  K3X builds the search and shows the matching companies and people in a new tab. Emails and phones stay masked until you reveal them.
    

## Example prompts

-   "Series A fintech companies in New York with 50 to 200 employees"
    
-   "Owners of HVAC companies in Texas with 10 to 50 employees"
    
-   "Heads of sales at logistics companies in Florida"
    
-   "Restaurants in Fulton County, Georgia, founded in the last two years"
    
-   "Dental practices in Arizona with annual revenue above $1M"
    

Good descriptions name four things: the kind of company (industry), where it is (state, county or city), how big it is (employees or revenue) and who you want to reach (title or role). You can skip any of them, but each one you add makes the list tighter.

## Refining a search

Your first result is a starting point. To refine:

-   Describe the change in the Command Center. Example: "only companies with more than 25 employees" or "add Alabama and Tennessee".
    
-   Use the column header filters in the grid for a quick narrow by Industry, Employees, Region, Annual Revenue or Founded.
    
-   If the list is too small, drop a constraint. Headcount and revenue are the usual culprits.
    
-   If the list is too big, add a title ("owners", "CEOs", "heads of sales") or a tighter location.
    

## Saving the search

A search you want to come back to can be saved as a Smartview. It stays as a named tab in the Database (for example "Financial Services CEOs") and keeps refreshing as new matching records enter the database. See "Smartviews that keep refreshing".

## Does searching cost credits?

Describing and browsing a search uses the Command Center, which spends a small amount from your AI credits like any other Command Center request. Looking at results and filtering them is free. Only **Reveal** spends Data Reveal credits.

## From Claude or ChatGPT

If you have connected K3X to Claude or ChatGPT in **Settings → Authorized Apps**, you can ask for the same search from that chat: "Find Series A fintech companies in New York with 50 to 200 employees." The results land in your Database.

## Related

-   Filters and columns in the Database
    
-   Smartviews that keep refreshing
    
-   Create a Database search from the Command Center
    
-   What the Database is and how it differs from Companies and People