> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.algolia.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How does Advanced Personalization work?

> Understand how Advanced Personalization uses a user's behavior to create personalized experiences.

Advanced Personalization builds a user profile for each of your users.
It bases each profile on the user's behavior on your website or app.
This behavior reveals a user's preferences and interests.
Call these preferences and interests "affinities".

<Callout icon="credit-card" color="#c084fc">
  This feature isn't available on every plan.
  Refer to your [pricing plan](https://www.algolia.com/pricing) to see if it's included.
</Callout>

## Identify categories as facets

Most users have affinities for categories of items, not specific items.
For example, a user might like athletic wear when shopping for clothes.
Or they might like fiction when browsing books, or pop music when listening to music.
These categories make up the [facets](/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/filtering) within your data.
To build accurate user profiles, Advanced Personalization needs to know which facets, or categories, a user has an affinity for.

Take a music streaming service as an example.
To personalize search results for each user, the service needs to know which genres and artists the user likes.
This matters more than knowing the specific songs they've listened to.
Advanced Personalization creates a user profile that details musical preferences, or affinities, based on the categories of music they like.
Use this profile with Algolia's [NeuralSearch](/doc/guides/ai-relevance/neuralsearch/get-started) or keyword search to personalize the user's search results.

For more information, see:

* [Prepare your index structure](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/configure/prerequisites/index-structure)
* [Prepare your search implementation](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/configure/prerequisites/search-implementation)

## Translate user behavior into affinities through events

User behavior describes all search and non-search interactions users have with your website or app.
Meaningful user behavior can provide insights into a user's affinities.
Examples of meaningful behavior include when a user clicks, views, likes, favorites, bookmarks, or purchases an item or category.

User behavior reaches Advanced Personalization in the form of standardized events.
**Each time a user does something meaningful, send an event to Algolia.**
**Advanced Personalization uses these events to build that user's profile.**
Gather as much data as possible to build complete, relevant user profiles.

For more information, see [Prepare your event implementation](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/configure/prerequisites/event-implementation).

## User profiles

A user profile is a summary of a user, based on their behavior on your website or app.
Use it with Algolia's [NeuralSearch](/doc/guides/ai-relevance/neuralsearch/get-started) and keyword search to personalize results.

For more information, see:

* [User profiles](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/what-is-advanced-personalization/concepts/user-profiles)
* [Fetching a user profile](/doc/guides/personalization/advanced-personalization/implement/guides/fetching-a-user-profile)