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How-to — task-oriented recipe.
Last Updated: October 29, 2026 Object Tags: Search, AI Chat, Profile Insights, Inferred Connections, Relationship Intelligence, People

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Overview

You often know who you want to meet before they’re in your CRM. Affinity can now find people outside your CRM whom someone in your network likely knows, and show you a short profile of them called Profile Insights. You can:
  • Find them. Search a name in global search, or ask AI Chat. People outside your CRM appear after the people already in it.
  • Preview them. Open Profile Insights to see an AI summary of who they are, their role, company and background, and who at your firm likely knows them.
A person outside your CRM appears only if your firm has at least one inferred connection to them. Affinity doesn’t open up its whole database of people.
No email address or phone number. Affinity never shows an email address or phone number for a person outside your CRM, in search, in AI Chat or in Profile Insights.

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Prerequisites

Plan: Scale, Advanced, or Enterprise.

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Part 1: Find a person outside your CRM

  1. Click the search bar at the top of Affinity and type the person’s name.
  2. Look in the results for the person. People outside your CRM show their company and job title where other people show an email address. Their photo has a small badge. Hover over it to see Potential contact.
  3. Select the person to see a preview titled Insights on followed by their first name. It shows their role, company and location, and the people at your firm who likely know them.
  4. Click the person to open their full Profile Insights.
Results are always in this order: people already in your CRM first, then people outside your CRM, then matching notes. A person outside your CRM doesn’t have a profile page, so you can’t open them in a new tab.

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In AI Chat

Ask about the person by name, the way you’d ask a colleague:
  • “Do we know John Smith?”
  • “Tell me about Jane Doe.”
AI Chat checks your CRM first. If it also finds people outside your CRM, it shows up to three of them as cards titled Insights on followed by the person’s first name. Each card shows who at your firm likely knows them. Click the expand icon on a card to open the person’s Profile Insights.
To ask for an introduction, follow up in the same chat, for example “Who can introduce me to John Smith?” See Warm Intros in AI Chat and MCP.
AI Chat can’t add a person outside your CRM to a list, or attach a note to them.

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Part 2: Open Profile Insights

Profile Insights is a short profile of a person outside your CRM. Open it from any of these places:
  • A search result, as above.
  • A card in AI Chat, as above.
  • An inferred connection card on the Connections tab of a company or person profile. Click the person’s name.

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What Profile Insights shows

Profile Insights for a person outside the CRM: header, AI summary, Current Role, Background, and Who likely knows with the evidence for one connection If Affinity doesn’t have a detail, Profile Insights leaves it out.

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Read “Who likely knows”

This section lists the people in your network who have an overlap with the person. Each row names someone and their current role. Click a row to see the evidence, for example:
  • Work history. Your contact and the person worked at the same company at the same time, and for how long.
  • Funding. Your contact was at an investment firm that took part in a funding round at the person’s company, while the person worked there.
Click Show more people to load more. If nobody in your network has an overlap yet, the section says so. These are likely connections, not confirmed ones. Check the evidence before you ask for an intro.

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On a narrow screen

When there isn’t much room, Profile Insights shows two tabs:
  • About has the summary, Current Role and Background.
  • Connections has Who likely knows.

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Hide a person from Profile Insights

If you opened Profile Insights from an inferred connection card, click Hide to stop suggesting the person on that page. A hide is just for you. See Hide an inferred connection. Profile Insights opened from an inferred connection, with the Hide button next to the person's name

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What’s not available yet

  • Adding to a list. You can’t add a person outside your CRM to a list from search, AI Chat or Profile Insights.
  • Search in the Affinity MCP. Person search in the Affinity MCP doesn’t return people outside your CRM.
  • The people list name field. Typing a name into a people list doesn’t suggest people outside your CRM.
  • Search by role or location. Search finds people outside your CRM by name only.

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FAQ

Affinity never shows contact details for people outside your CRM. To reach the person, ask someone in Who likely knows for an introduction.
A person outside your CRM appears only if your firm has at least one inferred connection to them. If nobody in your network likely knows them, they won’t appear.
If the person is already in your CRM, search shows their CRM record and you can open their full profile as usual.