Quick segments from profiles, measures and insights

What it does

A quick segment builds a segment from a single condition against unified profiles, a measure, or the output of a prediction or custom model — one field, one operator, one value. It produces a normal segment output table, just without going near the segment builder.

Key facts

Created from Insights > Segments > New > Create from, then one of three sources: Profiles (the unified customer table), Measures (a measure you've already built), or Insights (output from Predictions or custom models).
One operator only. There is no way to add a second condition, a sub-rule, or a set operator — that's the whole point of the feature.
For a categorical field, the dialog shows the top 10 values by customer count and you pick one. Anything outside that top 10 is not selectable here.
For a numerical attribute you choose an operator and type a value.
Review gives an Estimated segment size before you commit, which is the fastest sizing check in the product.
You still supply a Name and an Output table name, and can add tags, before Save.
Once saved, it behaves like any other segment: it can be scheduled, exported, tracked for usage, and used as an input elsewhere.
Quick segments count towards the same active segments and measures pool as builder segments — 1,000 combined is the soft limit before refresh performance suffers.
The docs do not describe promoting a quick segment into the full segment builder. Plan on rebuilding rather than converting when the definition grows.

When to use / skip

Use them for sizing conversations and for genuinely single-condition audiences. In a discovery workshop, being able to answer "how many customers are in the Gold tier?" in twenty seconds — with an estimate on screen before you save anything — changes the tone of the meeting. They're also the cleanest way to turn a prediction output into an actionable audience: churn score above a threshold, one condition, done.

Skip them for anything a campaign will actually run on more than once. Real campaign audiences acquire a second condition within a fortnight — a consent flag, a region exclusion, a recency window — and at that point you're rebuilding in the segment builder anyway. Starting in the builder costs a few extra minutes and saves the rebuild.

Also skip them where the value you need isn't in the top 10 for a categorical field. Rather than fight the picker, build the same condition in the segment builder where you can type any value.

Configuration decisions

Which source to build from: profiles, measures or insights. The same audience is often expressible from more than one, and the measure route is usually more stable because the business logic lives in the measure.
Whether the quick segment is throwaway sizing or a real object. If it's throwaway, delete it — don't leave it consuming the active segment budget.
Output table naming. Quick segments get exported and referenced exactly like builder segments, so they need to follow the same convention, not an ad-hoc name typed in a workshop.
Tags at creation, so a quick segment created for one campaign can be found and cleaned up afterwards.
Whether a prediction-derived quick segment needs a scheduled refresh, or whether it should stay static and be rebuilt each time the model is rescored.

Gotchas

The top-10 restriction on categorical fields is silent. Someone will pick the closest visible value and assume it's the one they wanted.
The estimated size is an estimate shown before save; it is not the segment's member count after a run. Don't quote it to a client as a final number.
Quick segments made during a workshop are the single biggest source of segment sprawl I've seen on CI Data projects. They're cheap to create and nobody remembers to remove them, so they sit there until automated deactivation catches them.
A quick segment built on a measure inherits that measure's refresh behaviour and any dependency ordering. If the measure hasn't refreshed, the segment is stale regardless of its own schedule.
Building from Insights ties the segment to a model output. If the model is retired or its output table is renamed, the segment breaks with no design-time warning.

Consultant notes

Demo quick segments in the first workshop, then demo the same audience in the segment builder. It sets expectations about which tool the client's team should be using day to day.
Tell the client's admin to sweep quick segments monthly, using tags. Left alone they accumulate faster than builder segments because there's no friction to creating them.
If the client's marketing team is going to self-serve, quick segments are the safe surface to give them and the segment builder is not. Consider that when setting up roles.
Check before go-live that no export or measure depends on a quick segment somebody created as a sizing experiment. It happens, and it's an awkward find.

Worth another look if Microsoft adds multi-condition quick segments or a route from a quick segment into the full builder.