When natural language search is on, attendees type a question such as "Founders in fintech" or "What should I not miss" and get matching people, sessions, speakers and companies, plus an AI-written summary. Turning the feature on, excluding registrants and renaming the Discovery tab are covered in Turn on natural language search and the Discovery tab.
Before you start
Enable Natural language search must be on for the event (Details > Features, organization admins only, after Brella grants access).
A registrant with Include in natural language search cleared does not get the new search. For them the app shows the classic keyword search and no Discovery page.
Search works until the day after the event's end date, or until Brella deactivates the event.
Where attendees find it
Mobile app: the search icon in the header, and the Ask anything bar on the Discovery page (or the name you gave the page) in Menu.
Web app: Discovery in the left menu on wider windows, or in Menu on narrow windows. Its Ask anything bar opens the search. The Search box in the right sidebar also opens it when that sidebar is visible.
The search opens in place as an overlay. The results open on the Discovery page.
Without a search, Discovery shows event-resource shortcuts and recommendations for people, sessions, speakers and companies. Selecting Clear beside a question returns to those recommendations. Share Search the event with attendees for the browsing and search steps.
How a search works for the attendee
The attendee opens the search. The field says "Ask anything about the event".
Under Try asking, five suggestions are offered: "People I should connect with", "What should I not miss", "People networking about AI", "Sessions I might be interested in" and "Companies I should check out". Under Recent, the attendee's recent searches on this device are listed, across all their events; each can be run again, copied into the field or removed.
The attendee types a question of 1 to 500 characters and submits it.
The Discovery page shows "Results for "<question>"" with a Clear link. While the search runs it says "Searching the event…".
When the search produces an answer, an AI SUMMARY card answers the question in plain text. When the event has nothing to support an answer, it says "We couldn't find enough information about that in this event."
The results follow in the sections People, Sessions, Speakers and Companies, each with a match count. When more than one page exists, the count reads "20+". Empty sections are hidden. With no matches at all, the page says "No results for that search."
Every search page ends with "Results use generative AI and may contain mistakes." and a View terms link to Brella's privacy notice.
What the search answers from
Results come from the event's own data only:
People: registrants who have joined, whose list has networking on, who did not skip networking, who are included in natural language search, and whom the attendee is allowed to see. Blocked people are left out. Brella uses the profile fields: name, company, title, function, industry, persona, interests, intents and the event pitch. Email addresses and registration answers are never used.
Companies: the event's sponsors.
Sessions and Speakers: the schedule and the speaker list.
The attendee's own meetings.
The AI summary can also draw on the event details, event info pages written in the editor, and released announcements. These never appear as results. Stories, streams and custom pages are not searched.
Questions about the venue, its address or the facilities on site use event info pages and announcements as well as the event details. If an event info page gives the venue address, the summary uses that address.
Questions about who has reported or been reported are rejected. The search never shows report status.
Messages attendees can see
Message | Cause |
"Search isn't available right now. Please try again." | Indexing is still running after the feature was turned on, the event has ended, Brella has revoked access, or the search failed for another reason. |
"You have searched a lot in a short time. Please wait a moment before searching again." | The attendee searched too often in a short time. A Try again in Ns button counts down. |
"A search is already running. Give it a moment and try again." | The attendee submitted a second search before the first finished. |
"We couldn't understand that search. Try rephrasing it." | The question could not be turned into a search, for example an impossible date or a question about reports. |
"The search took too long. Please try again." | The search ran past its time budget. |
"We found nothing to show and the answer service is unavailable. Please try again." | No results, and the AI answer could not be produced. |
"Recommendations aren't available right now. Please try again." | The Discovery recommendations could not load. |
Organizer settings and privacy
The event switch, Brella's access grant, the per-registrant and per-registration-link Include in natural language search checkboxes and the CSV column
allows_natural_searchare described in Turn on natural language search and the Discovery tab.Attendees have no opt-out in the app. To exclude someone, clear Include in natural language search on their registrant record in People > Registrants. Their profile then leaves results and AI summaries, and they lose the AI search and Discovery themselves.
Searching is tied to the event: an attendee only sees data from the event they are in, within the same visibility rules as the People page and the schedule.
The Recent list in the app is stored on the attendee's device.
Limits
1 to 500 characters per question.
One search at a time per attendee.
Each result section shows one page. Counts over the page size appear as "20+".
Troubleshooting
An attendee does not see the search icon's AI search or Discovery
The feature is off for the event, or Include in natural language search is cleared for that registrant. They get the classic search instead.
A person never appears in results
They have not joined, their list has networking off, they skipped networking, or they are excluded with Include in natural language search. See Check who opted in or out of networking.
The AI summary says it could not find enough information
The event's details, event info pages and announcements do not cover the question. Add the information to an event info page.