---
title: "Enable visual search"
slug: "enable-visual-search"
abstract: "How to enable visual search on your instance of Sitecore Content Hub."
---
# Enable visual search

> [!important]
> AI capabilities in Content Hub need to be enabled and, if necessary, configured by a *superuser* or a user with the necessary permissions granted to them through [user group policies](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/user-group-policies.html "User group policies"). Most AI capabilities require Sitecore Stream.

[AI-assisted visual search](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/search-for-similar-images.html "Search for similar images") helps you find the images you need quickly and easily. Before you can use it, you need to enable the feature and then [configure it](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/configure-sitecore-ai-for-visual-search.html "Configure Sitecore AI for visual search").

Enabling the visual search feature generates a new rendition based on the *preview* rendition. This new rendition contains embeddings that are recognized by the AI technology.

Enabling the visual search feature also automatically adds the [extract image embeddings](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/create-a-processing-task.html "Create a processing task") processing task to your media processing flow.

[When you upload assets for visual search](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/understanding-ai-services.html "Understanding AI services"), they go through the standard media processing flow and the *embeddings* renditions are automatically generated. When these *embeddings* renditions are created, an asset modification event is triggered that updates the asset's modified date, and creates an entry in the audit log. This logging behavior is consistent with any new rendition creation within Content Hub.

> [!note]
> The *embeddings* rendition is stored in the same way as other renditions within Content Hub. Its contents are indexed in Elasticsearch for enhanced searchability. This indexing triggers updates to the graph queue, ensuring the latest state is reflected across the platform. When you bulk enable visual search for a large number of assets, be aware that this process will generate asset modifications and indexing updates. This might be relevant if you have scripting or reporting in place that monitors asset changes.

Enabling the visual search feature makes it available on your pages, so that:

- On the **Assets** page, there's a drop down arrow in the **Search** field and a **View similar assets** :mdiImageSearchOutline: button on the menu bar, when in grid view.
- On the **Asset details** page, a :mdiImageSearchOutline: **View similar assets** button is added to the :mdiDotsHorizontal: drop-down menu and a **Similar assets** section is added to the page.

![Asset details page showing the Similar assets section and the View similar assets button.](https://doc.sitecore.com/api/markdown-image/ch/en/users/content-hub/images/similar-assets-on-asset-details-page.png)

> [!note]
> If you disable the visual search feature, the *Extract image embeddings* task is removed from the media processing flow. New images or 3D archives will not have an *embeddings* rendition, but existing *embeddings* renditions are kept. If assets are being processed when you click **Disable**, the processing job will run until it has finished.

To enable visual search:

1. On the menu bar, click **Manage** :mdiCogOutline:.
2. On the **Manage** page, click **AI features**.
3. In the left pane, click **AI search** and then click **Enable**.
4. In the **Enable AI search** dialog, click one of the following options:
    - **All assets** - to generate the *embeddings* rendition on all archives, images, and vectors.
    - **Asset media** - to generate the *embeddings* rendition only on the selected [asset media](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/asset-media-types.html "Asset media types") (archives, images, and vectors).
    - **Asset type** - to generate the *embeddings* rendition only on images and vectors of the selected asset type.
    - **Collections** - to generate the *embeddings* rendition on images and vectors of the selected collections. Click **Add** :mdiPlus: and, in the **Collection** dialog, select the check boxes next to those collections you want to include, and then click **Save**.
5. To automatically configure the **Assets** page and the asset details pages after assets are processed, at the bottom of the dialog, turn on the switch. To configure these pages manually, turn the switch off.
6. Click **Enable and prepare assets**. You can see the progress of the rendition generation in the dialog. After the first batch of assets is processed, the visual search feature will be enabled on your pages.
7. To add other archives, images, and vectors to visual search, click **Add assets to be processed** and, in the **Add assets** dialog, click one of the options shown in step 4, and then click **Add assets to be processed**.
8. To view details about the assets being processed and their associated [embeddings](https://doc.sitecore.com/ch/en/users/content-hub/understanding-ai-services.html#UUID-16f3396c-af1f-3d9d-c5b4-faa93815e909_title-idm273482073039110) renditions, click **View details**.
9. On the **Embeddings** page, click **View details** to see the details and system properties.