# Keyword research

> Ask your AI assistant for keywords people search for, with monthly searches, trend, competition and bid estimates from your Google Ads or Microsoft Ads planner.

You research keywords by asking your AI assistant (see [Connect your AI](/docs/connect-your-ai)). Roasby asks the keyword planner of one of your ad accounts (Google Ads Keyword Planner or Microsoft Ads Keyword Planner) for keywords and their estimates, so you can pick keywords people actually search before you build a campaign or add keywords. Research never changes anything in your ad accounts.

There is no web page for keyword research: you ask your assistant. The old **Keyword research** address in Roasby now opens the [dashboard](/docs/dashboard), whose **Keyword ideas** prompt starts a search in one click.

## What you can ask for

- **New keyword ideas** from up to 20 seed keywords (words or phrases that describe what you sell), a web page, or both.
- **Volumes of your keywords** for up to 1,000 keywords you already have or are thinking of.

Each search runs in one ad account: its platform does the research, and bid estimates come in its currency. Name up to 10 countries and the language people search in. Your assistant asks you for what you don't say.

## What you get back

Keywords come with the most searched first:

- **Average monthly searches**: the average of the last 12 months. When the platform gives no number, your assistant says so instead of guessing.
- **Trend**: the searches of each of the last 12 months.
- **Competition**: low, medium or high, from how many advertisers bid on the keyword. Google Ads adds a number from 0 to 100.
- **Bid estimate**: on Google Ads, the low and high top-of-page bid (what advertisers paid at the 20th and 80th percentile); on Microsoft Ads, the bid it suggests.

For your own keywords, Google Ads combines close variants (like *car* and *cars*) into one result, and your assistant tells you which keywords came back without a result.

A new search usually takes a few seconds. The same search again within a day gives the same results at once.

## Ask your AI assistant

Your assistant runs the research with `get_keyword_ideas` (from seed keywords or a web page) and `get_keyword_volumes` (for keywords you give it), and is told to use them before it builds a campaign or adds keywords. When a new search is still running, it asks again a few seconds later. Try:

- *"Find keyword ideas for waterproof hiking boots in the US and Canada, then suggest ad groups for a new search campaign"*
- *"How many people search for these 50 keywords in Germany each month, and what would they cost?"*
- *"Find keyword ideas from our landing page that the Trail ad group doesn't have yet"*

To add the keywords you pick, ask your assistant to add them to an ad group: see [Adding keywords](/docs/editing-campaigns#adding-keywords-through-your-ai-assistant).

## Limitations

- The numbers are estimates. Google Ads rounds search volumes, and accounts with little or no ad spend may see broader rounded numbers.
- ChatGPT Ads has no keyword research. Microsoft Ads researches keywords in English, French and German only; Google Ads in every language Roasby offers except Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Maltese.
- Countries only, no regions or cities. A disconnected ad account can't research keywords.
- Each new search asks the ad platform, so a workspace can run only so many new searches an hour; searches you already ran don't count. Google Ads keyword research can pause for a while when Roasby's shared Google Ads capacity is busy.
- The same search gives the same results for a day; after that, it asks the ad platform again. When the ad platform refuses a search, your assistant tells you why.

See every limit by platform on [Limitations](/docs/limitations).