> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: /help/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Research with AI online > Let the AI look up each contact on the public web and personalize your messages with what it finds. **Research with AI online** is a campaign step. For each contact that reaches it, the AI searches the public web for the person and their company (using their name, job title, company, company website and LinkedIn profile) and hands what it found to the next steps. ## What you get The step gives these values to every step after it. Pick them from the variable menu above any message, where they read like **Research with AI online (step 3) > Company summary**: | Value | What it is | | - | - | | Personalization hook | One specific sentence you can open a message with, based on a fact it found | | Person summary | One or two sentences about the person | | Company summary | One or two sentences about the company | | Recent news | The most relevant recent item (a launch, funding, a hire) | | Company website | The company's own website | | Email found | An email address, only when it is published on a public page (see below) | | Where the email was found | The page the email is on | In a message they look like `{{steps.research.personalization_hook}}`, where `research` is the step's name. ## Two ways out: email found or no email The step has two outcomes on the canvas: * **email found**: the AI found the person's email written on a public web page. It is saved on the contact (when the contact had no email), so a **Send email** step right after it can write to them. To keep it only as a variable, untick **Save a found email on the contact (when it has none)** in the step. * **no email**: nothing was published. Connect another step (a LinkedIn message, a tag), or leave it empty and the contact's path ends there. The email is never guessed. Kerux keeps it only when the address appears, word for word, on one of the pages the search returned, and it stores that page with it. Team inboxes such as info@ or sales@ are never treated as the person's own address. ## Add the step **1. Open your campaign's steps** Click **+** where you want it, and pick **Research with AI online** in the **AI** section. **2. Optional: say what to look for** In **Look in particular for (optional)**, write something like "their latest product launch". **3. Use what it finds** In the next message or email, open the variable menu and pick, for example, **Personalization hook**. You can also ask the AI builder: "When someone views my profile, research the person and email them" builds the research step, the email for people whose address was found, and leaves the other path for you. ## Safe sending A message never goes out with an empty value. The summaries, the news and the hook never carry a link, email address or phone number that isn't the company's own website: if the AI found one there, that value is left empty. If the research found no hook for a contact and your message uses it, that contact waits on the message with **Paused: this step needs data the contact doesn't have**, like any other missing variable. To send it anyway, type a sentence for it in the message's **Handle missing data** section (for example "I came across your profile"), or click **Send anyway** on the contact. ## AI credits and limits * Each contact uses about 15 to 20 AI credits (up to 3 web searches plus the AI's reading). The number of searches is a setting of the step, **Web searches at most** (1 to 5, 3 unless you change it). * A contact researched in the last 30 days is not researched again: the step reuses what it found, without using AI credits. * When your team runs out of AI credits for the month, contacts wait on this step with **Waiting: your team used this month's AI credits** and go on by themselves when credits are back (the 1st of the month). The launch check warns you before you start if the credits left won't cover your contacts. * If the AI can't answer, the contact waits and Kerux tries again a few times. After that it stops with the reason, and **Retry** (in **Home > Tasks** or on the contact) runs it again. A contact is never skipped or marked finished because the AI failed. ## Public information only The AI looks only at public web pages. It doesn't look for or keep private details (home address, phone numbers, family, health, politics, religion), and every fact keeps the pages it came from: open the contact and look at **Team > Researched online with AI** to see them. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.