diff --git a/plugins/catalog-react/src/components/EntityOwnerPicker/useQueryEntities.ts b/plugins/catalog-react/src/components/EntityOwnerPicker/useQueryEntities.ts
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..4d1373bfde
--- /dev/null
+++ b/plugins/catalog-react/src/components/EntityOwnerPicker/useQueryEntities.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,70 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2023 The Backstage Authors
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+import { useApi } from '@backstage/core-plugin-api';
+import { catalogApiRef } from '../../api';
+import useAsyncFn from 'react-use/lib/useAsyncFn';
+import { Entity } from '@backstage/catalog-model';
+
+type QueryEntitiesResponse = {
+  items: Entity[];
+  cursor?: string;
+};
+
+export function useQueryEntities() {
+  const catalogApi = useApi(catalogApiRef);
+  return useAsyncFn(
+    async (
+      request: { text: string } | QueryEntitiesResponse,
+    ): Promise<QueryEntitiesResponse> => {
+      const initialRequest = request as { text: string };
+      const cursorRequest = request as QueryEntitiesResponse;
+      const limit = 20;
+
+      if (cursorRequest.cursor) {
+        const response = await catalogApi.queryEntities({
+          cursor: cursorRequest.cursor,
+          limit,
+        });
+        return {
+          cursor: response.pageInfo.nextCursor,
+          items: [...cursorRequest.items, ...response.items],
+        };
+      }
+
+      const response = await catalogApi.queryEntities({
+        fullTextFilter: {
+          term: initialRequest.text || '',
+          fields: [
+            'metadata.name',
+            'kind',
+            'spec.profile.displayname',
+            'metadata.title',
+          ],
+        },
+        filter: { kind: ['User', 'Group'] },
+        orderFields: [{ field: 'metadata.name', order: 'asc' }],
+        limit,
+      });
+
+      return {
+        cursor: response.pageInfo.nextCursor,
+        items: response.items,
+      };
+    },
+    [],
+    { loading: true },
+  );
+}