diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index ff2dd38c1..13eb6ccd7 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -16,6 +16,7 @@ Development
 - BREAKING CHANGE: wrap _document_registry (normally not used by end users) with _DocumentRegistry which acts as a singleton to access the registry
 - Log a warning in case users creates multiple Document classes with the same name as it can lead to unexpected behavior #1778
 - Fix use of $geoNear or $collStats in aggregate #2493
+- Fix use of $search or $vectorSearch in aggregate #2878
 - BREAKING CHANGE: Further to the deprecation warning, remove ability to use an unpacked list to `Queryset.aggregate(*pipeline)`, a plain list must be provided instead `Queryset.aggregate(pipeline)`, as it's closer to pymongo interface
 - BREAKING CHANGE: Further to the deprecation warning, remove `full_response` from `QuerySet.modify` as it wasn't supported with Pymongo 3+
 - Fixed stacklevel of many warnings (to point places emitting the warning more accurately)
diff --git a/mongoengine/queryset/base.py b/mongoengine/queryset/base.py
index 2db97ddb7..f077ad83b 100644
--- a/mongoengine/queryset/base.py
+++ b/mongoengine/queryset/base.py
@@ -1398,9 +1398,10 @@ def aggregate(self, pipeline, **kwargs):
         first_step = []
         new_user_pipeline = []
         for step_step in pipeline:
-            if "$geoNear" in step_step:
-                first_step.append(step_step)
-            elif "$collStats" in step_step:
+            if any(
+                el in step_step
+                for el in ["$geoNear", "$collStats", "$search", "$vectorSearch"]
+            ):
                 first_step.append(step_step)
             else:
                 new_user_pipeline.append(step_step)
diff --git a/tests/queryset/test_queryset_aggregation.py b/tests/queryset/test_queryset_aggregation.py
index 7e390e35a..283680ac0 100644
--- a/tests/queryset/test_queryset_aggregation.py
+++ b/tests/queryset/test_queryset_aggregation.py
@@ -1,3 +1,6 @@
+import sys
+from unittest.mock import patch
+
 import pytest
 from pymongo.read_preferences import ReadPreference
 
@@ -373,3 +376,30 @@ class SomeDoc(Document):
         res = list(SomeDoc.objects.aggregate(pipeline))
         assert len(res) == 1
         assert res[0]["count"] == 2
+
+    def test_aggregate_search_used_as_initial_step_before_cls_implicit_step(self):
+        class SearchableDoc(Document):
+            first_name = StringField()
+            last_name = StringField()
+
+        privileged_step = {
+            "$search": {
+                "index": "default",
+                "autocomplete": {
+                    "query": "foo",
+                    "path": "first_name",
+                },
+            }
+        }
+        pipeline = [privileged_step]
+
+        # Search requires an Atlas instance, so we instead mock the aggregation call to inspect the final pipeline
+        with patch.object(SearchableDoc, "_collection") as coll_mk:
+            SearchableDoc.objects(last_name="bar").aggregate(pipeline)
+            if sys.version_info < (3, 8):
+                final_pipeline = coll_mk.aggregate.call_args_list[0][0][0]
+            else:
+                final_pipeline = coll_mk.aggregate.call_args_list[0].args[0]
+            assert len(final_pipeline) == 2
+            # $search moved before the $match on last_name
+            assert final_pipeline[0] == privileged_step