Over the past two years, LinkedIn has been integrating AI into various aspects of its platform, including writing tools, ad generation, job recommendations, hiring support, and learning resources. Now the company is bringing AI to one of its most heavily used features: search.
Earlier this year, LinkedIn introduced an AI-powered job search feature for users in the United States, allowing people to search for roles using natural language. The company is now expanding that idea to people search.
Users can type requests such as “Find investors in the healthcare space with FDA experience,” “Show me people who co-founded a productivity startup and live in New York,” or “Who in my network understands wireless networks.”
Until now, finding the right person often meant experimenting with keywords or juggling a long list of filters. If you didn’t know the exact job title or phrasing, the person you were looking for could easily stay hidden.
“Traditional search required you to know the exact title or use the right filter combination. If you didn’t, you might never find the person you needed,” said Rohan Rajiv, LinkedIn’s senior director of product management, in a call with TechCrunch. “The new AI-powered people search is meant to be the fastest way to reach the person who can help you most.”
In early testing, LinkedIn found that members used the tool to identify people who could support a career move, help build a business, or offer guidance in a new field.
Search is quickly becoming a major battleground for AI features across the internet. As more users turn to tools like ChatGPT or Perplexity for answers, platforms such as Google, Bing, Brave, and DuckDuckGo have added AI-driven responses.
Startups are also chasing AI-powered people search, and Reddit has leaned into AI as well, even requiring licenses for companies that want access to its data. Despite being widely used in AI agent demos, LinkedIn has not restricted its own data for now.
Rajiv said the company is still figuring out how browsers and AI agents will fit into its long-term policies. “We are early in this phase,” he noted. “Over time, our stance will become clearer. But there is no substitute for actually using the platform because this is the worst the search will ever be.”
LinkedIn is beginning the rollout of AI people search to premium subscribers in the United States, with plans to expand internationally. Those who get access will see the search bar prompt change to “I’m looking for…” instead of “Search.”
The new system still has quirks. For instance, asking for “people who co-founded a YC startup” returns different results than using “Y Combinator,” and searching for “people who co-founded a voice AI startup” sometimes surfaces users with a “LinkedIn Top Voice” badge simply because of the keyword “voice.”
The company says it is continuing to refine how the tool interprets natural language queries.
