> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getcollate.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Natural Language Search > Ask Collate questions in plain English to search your data assets instead of building keyword queries or filters by hand. # Natural Language Search Natural language search lets you ask Collate a question the way you'd ask a colleague—*"Tables owned by marketing"* or *"Tier 1 pipelines in the Snowflake service"*—instead of typing keywords and clicking through filter dropdowns. Collate AI reads your question, works out which filters you mean, and combines them with a semantic search across your assets so the results reflect what you're actually looking for, not just which words happen to match. ## Turn On Natural Language Search * The toggle lives inside the **Explore Assets** search card at the top of the Explore page, as an icon next to the search field. * Hover over the icon to see its current state: **Use natural language search** when it's off, and **Natural language search is active** once you've turned it on. * Click the icon to switch modes. With it on, the search box switches from keyword suggestions to natural-language prompts. * Your choice is remembered—Collate keeps natural language search on or off for you the next time you visit Explore. * This toggle only appears if your deployment has natural language search enabled. If you don't see it, check with your Collate admin. Natural Language Search Toggle ## Ask a Question * With natural language search active, click into the search box to see a list of example questions to ask or use as a starting point. * Type your own question and press **Enter**, or click one of the suggested prompts to run it immediately. * Collate AI can pick out the following from your question and turn them into filters automatically: * **Owner**—for example, *"Tables owned by marketing"*. * **Tag**—for example, *"Dashboards tagged PII.Sensitive"*. * **Tier**—for example, *"Tier 1 pipelines"*. * **Certification**—for example, *"Gold certified tables"*. * **Domain**—for example, *"Assets in the Finance domain"*. * **Data Product**—for example, *"Tables in the Customer Analytics data product"*. * **Service and Service Type**—for example, *"Tables in the Snowflake service"*. * **Database and Database Schema**—for example, *"Schemas in the analytics database"*. * **Entity Type**—for example, *"Pipelines"*, *"Dashboards"*, or *"ML models"*. * Combine several of these in one question—for example, *"Tier 1 tables owned by marketing in the Snowflake service"*—and Collate applies all of the matching filters together. * If your question doesn't map to a specific filter, Collate falls back to a semantic search over asset names, descriptions, and other metadata, so you still get relevant results instead of none. Natural Language Search Suggestions ## Reading Your Results * Submitting a natural language question takes you to the same Explore results page you'd see from a keyword search—your question stays visible in the search box, and results are sorted by relevance. * Any filters Collate AI extracted from your question appear as removable chips in the filter bar below the search box. Click the **×** on a chip to drop just that filter, or **Clear All** to reset every filter at once. **Example**: Searching *"Find dashboards tagged with PII.Sensitive"* adds a **Tag: PII.Sensitive** chip to the filter bar, and the **Browse estate** panel on the left updates to show **Dashboards**. * The quick filter chips above the search results—**Tables**, **Dashboards**, **Tier 1**, **My Assets**, **Recently Updated**—work independently of natural language search. Clicking one clears your natural language question and applies that filter instead. Natural Language Search Results ## Troubleshooting **Search filters are unavailable**: If your deployment's natural language search service isn't fully set up, you might see a banner reading **Search filters are unavailable**. This means Collate AI couldn't extract filters from your question, but keyword and semantic search still work normally. Check the **Settings** > **Preferences** > **Health Check** page, or ask your Collate admin to review the server logs. Find data assets using keyword search, quick filters, and advanced search.