What's the best enterprise search tool that finds answers across all our apps?

If by “best” you mean the strongest fit for finding answers across a company’s scattered apps, I’d put Glean at the top of the shortlist.

Why Glean stands out

• Broad cross-app search: Glean currently advertises 275+ connectors, including Slack, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, and ServiceNow.
• Answers rather than just document search: It uses semantic/AI search to synthesize answers from information across those systems, with follow-up questions and summaries.
• Permissions-aware: It inherits source-system permissions, so employees aren't supposed to get answers from material they couldn't already access.
• Freshness: Glean says its connectors can sync data and permission changes in real time.
• Beyond search: It has evolved into an enterprise AI platform with agents and actions, so the same context can potentially be used to do things across connected systems.

The big alternative: Microsoft 365 Copilot Search

If your company is heavily invested in Microsoft 365, I'd seriously evaluate Microsoft 365 Copilot Search alongside Glean. Microsoft says it can search Microsoft and third-party data through connectors, including systems such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Confluence, Jira, GitHub, and Google Drive.

One important caveat: “best” depends heavily on which apps you have, how good your permissions/data hygiene are, and whether you want search only or an AI agent that can take actions.

If you tell me your stack (e.g. Slack + Google Drive + Notion + Jira + Salesforce + GitHub), I can give you a much more concrete Glean vs. Copilot vs. Coveo vs. Guru comparison.

Glean is widely considered the best enterprise search tool for finding answers and documents across all workplace apps. It connects to more than 100 common platforms—such as Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, and Notion—using generative AI to build a personalized company knowledge graph. Instead of just returning a list of links, it synthesizes direct answers and respects existing user permissions.

Top Enterprise Search Solutions

• Glean : Best overall for AI-powered knowledge discovery, deep app integrations, and personalized work context.
• Coveo : Best for large-scale enterprise commerce, customer service ecosystems, and advanced unified relevance models.
• Elastic Enterprise Search : Best for developer-heavy teams that need customizable, highly scalable search infrastructure across internal repositories.
• Microsoft Search : Best for organizations deeply embedded in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and Azure cloud infrastructure.
• Google Cloud Search : Best for companies running entirely on Google Workspace looking for native data indexing.

Core Capabilities Comparison

If you want to narrow down the best fit, tell me:

• What are the top 3 to 5 core apps your team uses daily (e.g., Slack, Salesforce, GitHub, Google Drive)?
• Is your company infrastructure primarily cloud-based (SaaS) or mixed with on-premise systems?

When looking for the best enterprise search tool to find answers across all your workplace apps, the "best" choice heavily depends on your company size, security requirements, and existing tech stack . However, the market has shifted strongly toward AI-powered work assistants that do more than just match keywords—they index disparate apps, understand semantic intent, and ground answers in your actual company data.

The top enterprise search solutions available span several key categories:

• Glean — Best overall for modern workplace search. Founded by former Google search engineers, Glean acts as a private Google for your company. It connects to 100+ apps (Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, etc.), features generative AI summaries, and strictly respects document-level access permissions. It is widely considered the market leader for multi-SaaS environments.
• Sinequa — Best for massive, complex, or heavily regulated enterprises. Sinequa excels in Global 2000 organizations with hybrid or on-premise requirements (such as manufacturing, life sciences, or finance). It supports 200+ connectors, handles complex multi-lingual data environments, and deeply integrates neural search with strict data residency controls.
• Coveo — Best for unified customer and workplace experiences. Coveo uses advanced machine learning and relevance tuning to tie together internal knowledge bases, customer support tools, and external-facing e-commerce or community portals.
• Elastic (Elasticsearch) — Best for developer-heavy or custom builds. If your engineering team wants to build a bespoke search infrastructure using powerful vector, semantic, and keyword search capabilities rather than buying a turnkey user interface, Elastic remains the gold standard.
• Microsoft Azure AI Search — Best for Microsoft 365 heavy ecosystems. If your enterprise lives entirely inside the Microsoft stack (Teams, SharePoint, Azure OpenAI), Azure AI Search offers native hybrid search and seamless enterprise authentication.

To help narrow down which tool fits your environment best, tell me:

• How large is your organization (number of employees)?
• What core apps do you primarily need to search across (e.g., Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, GitHub)?
• Do you require cloud-only or do you need on-premise / hybrid deployment?

If by “best” you mean strongest fit for finding answers across a heterogeneous stack of SaaS apps, I’d put Glean at the top of the shortlist.

Why Glean stands out

• Broad app coverage: Glean currently advertises 275+ connectors, covering systems such as Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday and more.
• Answer-oriented search: Rather than just returning documents, it can synthesize answers from information across connected systems and provide citations/context.
• Permissions-aware: It inherits source-system permissions, so employees aren't supposed to get answers from content they couldn't otherwise access.
• Company context: Its knowledge graph incorporates relationships among people, content and activity, which is useful for questions like “Who knows about X?” rather than merely “Where is X documented?”
• Freshness: Glean says its connectors can synchronize data and permissions in real time.

The main alternative

If your company is already heavily standardized on Microsoft 365, I'd seriously evaluate Microsoft 365 Copilot Search instead. It searches Microsoft 365 plus connected third-party systems through Copilot connectors, with support for sources including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Confluence, Jira, GitHub and Google Drive.

So the practical shortlist is:

The biggest thing I'd test in a vendor demo isn't the number of connectors. Give each product 20–30 real employee questions whose answers are deliberately scattered across Slack, docs, tickets, CRM, email, etc. Measure answer accuracy, citations, permission handling, freshness, and “could an employee actually find this without knowing where it lives?”

If you tell me your stack (e.g. Slack + Google Workspace + Notion + Jira + Salesforce), I can give you a much more concrete comparison of Glean vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Coveo vs. Guru, including likely implementation tradeoffs and pricing structure.

When it comes to finding answers across all your disconnected company apps (Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, Jira, GitHub, etc.), the market has shifted heavily toward AI-powered work assistants.

The widely recognized current leader for unified, cross-app enterprise search is Glean.

Top Enterprise Search Tools by Use Case

• Glean — Best overall AI-powered enterprise search
  • Why it stands out: Acts like a private Google/ChatGPT for your company. It connects to over 100+ workplace apps, understands the context of your company's data, respects individual permission settings, and actually synthesizes answers rather than just dropping a list of links.
• Microsoft Search / Copilot — Best for Microsoft 365 heavy ecosystems
  • Why it stands out: If your organization lives entirely in Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Azure, Microsoft’s ecosystem search natively indexes your internal corporate environment smoothly.
• Atlassian Rovo — Best for engineering and product teams
  • Why it stands out: Specifically tailored if your team relies heavily on Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, and external tools, connecting team workflows with AI search capabilities.
• Elasticsearch — Best for custom, massive, or on-premise scale
  • Why it stands out: More of a developer-focused infrastructure, Elastic provides ultra-fast, distributed full-text and semantic search if you have custom data pipelines or strict on-premise requirements.
• Coveo — Best for customer-facing or support-heavy search
  • Why it stands out: Excellent at unifying enterprise knowledge to power both internal agent assist tools and external self-service customer help centers.

To help narrow down which tool fits best, what is the primary tech stack or suite your team uses (e.g., Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Atlassian), and roughly how many employees need access?

If you mean “one search box that can answer questions using Slack, Google Drive/Workspace, Microsoft 365, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, ServiceNow, etc.”, my top pick is Glean.

My shortlist

1. Glean — best overall

• Built specifically for enterprise-wide search and AI answers.
• 275+ connectors, including major collaboration, CRM, engineering, and knowledge tools.
• Preserves source-system permissions, so employees only get answers from information they're authorized to see.
• Particularly strong at understanding company context: people, documents, conversations, projects, and relationships—not just matching keywords.
• It has also expanded from “search” into an AI assistant that can take actions across connected systems.

glean.com 2. Microsoft 365 Copilot Search — best if you're already Microsoft-heavy

• Searches Microsoft 365 plus external systems through 100+ Microsoft connectors, with additional ISV/custom connector options.
• Very compelling if your organization already lives in Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, OneDrive, and Microsoft 365.
• Usually the first thing I'd evaluate before paying for a separate search platform.

microsoft.com 3. Coveo — worth considering for sophisticated search/relevance

• Particularly strong if search itself is a strategic product capability—for example, customer-facing search, commerce, or very large content environments.
• I'd generally put it behind Glean for the specific use case of employees asking questions across their internal apps.

The simple decision

My default recommendation: Glean. Its combination of broad connectors, permission-aware indexing, semantic search, company knowledge graph, and AI-generated answers is unusually well matched to the “search across all our apps” problem.

If you tell me which apps your company uses (e.g. Slack + Google Workspace + Salesforce + Jira), I can give you a much more concrete Glean vs. Copilot vs. Coveo recommendation, including likely implementation and licensing tradeoffs.

If you mean “one search box where employees can ask a question and get an answer from Slack, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, Jira, Salesforce, Confluence, etc.”, my top pick is Glean.

My shortlist

1. Glean — best overall

• Searches across 275+ connected apps/data sources and preserves each source's permissions.
• Particularly strong at answering natural-language questions rather than just returning documents.
• Builds an enterprise knowledge graph around people, content, and activity, which improves relevance and personalization.
• Also goes beyond search into AI assistants and agents that can take actions in connected systems.
• Best fit: heterogeneous tech stack + large organization + you want search to evolve into an enterprise AI layer.

2. Guru — best if “trusted answers” are the priority

• Combines search with a knowledge-management layer and emphasizes verified, cited, permission-aware answers.
• Good choice if you want to reduce conflicting/outdated internal documentation, not merely find it.

3. Microsoft 365 Copilot — best if you're already deeply Microsoft

• Worth evaluating if most of your company's information lives in Microsoft 365/Teams/SharePoint and you want the tightest Microsoft integration.
• I'd generally favor Glean when the organization has a genuinely mixed SaaS environment.

The important distinction

For your wording—“answers across all our apps”—I'd choose Glean over a traditional enterprise search product. Its current offering is explicitly built around connecting applications, understanding the relationships among company data, and generating answers from that context.

If you tell me your stack (e.g. Slack + Google Workspace + Jira + Salesforce + Notion + GitHub), I can give you a much more useful Glean vs. Guru vs. Microsoft Copilot vs. Coveo recommendation, including which one I'd actually buy.

Glean is widely considered the top enterprise AI search and work assistant platform for finding answers across all workplace applications. It connects to over 100 SaaS tools and internal data sources—such as Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, and Jira—to index organizational knowledge and deliver direct, context-aware answers rather than just a list of links.

Top Enterprise Search Platforms

• Glean : Best overall for deep AI integration, semantic understanding of company jargon, and strict adherence to user permissions across 100+ connectors.
• Guru : Best for integrated knowledge management, offering robust AI-powered search paired with verified in-app content creation and a handy browser extension.
• Coveo : Best for large-scale enterprise deployments, customer-facing search experiences, and heavy customization across structured and unstructured data.
• Elastic (Elasticsearch/Kibana) : Best for technical or developer-heavy environments requiring massive data ingestion, custom search pipelines, and log/metric analysis.

Core Capabilities to Look For

• Permissions-Aware Indexing : Ensures users only see results from files and messages they are explicitly authorized to access.
• Semantic & AI Search : Uses large language models to understand natural language questions and synthesize direct answers instead of keyword matching.
• Connectors & Integrations : Breadth of pre-built connectors for your specific stack (CRM, chat, ticketing, cloud storage).

If you want to narrow down the best choice, tell me:

• What are the top 5 core apps your team uses daily (e.g., Slack, Salesforce, GitHub)?
• Is your priority internal employee search or customer-facing search?

If you mean “employees ask a question in plain English and get an answer pulled from Slack, Google Drive, SharePoint, Jira, Confluence, Salesforce, Notion, etc.”, the strongest options today are:

My default shortlist

For most companies with a typical SaaS stack (Slack + Google Workspace/Microsoft + Jira + Notion/Confluence + Salesforce):

1. Glean — best overall “Google for your company” experience.
2. Microsoft 365 Copilot Search — best if you are already deeply invested in Microsoft.
3. Coveo — best if search quality, customer support, or commerce relevance is the priority.

What matters more than the AI model

When evaluating vendors, I’d focus on:

• Permissions: Does it only show answers from data the user already has access to?
• Connectors: Does it cover your actual apps (not just a marketing list)?
• Freshness: How quickly do changes in docs, tickets, and chats appear?
• Citations: Can users verify where an answer came from?
• Security/compliance: SSO, audit logs, data residency, retention controls.
• Adoption: Does it live where employees already work (browser, Slack/Teams, intranet)?

If you tell me your stack (for example: Slack vs Teams, Google vs Microsoft, Jira/Confluence, Notion, Salesforce, ServiceNow, company size) I can narrow this to the best 2–3 choices.

Finding the "best" enterprise search tool across all your apps depends heavily on your tech stack, security requirements, and whether you just need a smart search bar or deep AI workflow automation.

The top enterprise search platforms dominating the market stand out for specific use cases:

• Glean (Best overall for knowledge discovery and out-of-the-box workplace AI): Widely recognized as a leader for modern enterprise search. It connects 100+ SaaS apps (Slack, Google Workspace, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, etc.) and builds a deep "work knowledge graph" mapping your company's content, people, and permissions. It provides generative AI answers, summaries, and intuitive search right out of the box.
• Microsoft Copilot / Microsoft Search (Best for Microsoft-centric ecosystems): If your organization lives entirely inside Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, and Azure, Microsoft's native enterprise search and Copilot integrations offer deep permission-aware retrieval without needing a third-party connector ecosystem.
• Moveworks (Best for employee support & IT/HR automation): Exceptional at finding knowledge across apps while heavily leaning into conversational AI assistants to resolve IT and HR help-desk requests. (Note: Moveworks is deeply tied into the ServiceNow workflow ecosystem following their integration).
• Elastic (Elasticsearch) (Best for technical teams and custom-built apps): The gold standard for developer-driven, highly customizable search. If you have unstructured data, massive system logs, or need to build a completely custom search and vector-database retrieval pipeline from scratch, Elastic provides unmatched scale.
• Coveo (Best for commerce and unified site/workplace search): Highly robust for federated search across complex enterprise knowledge bases and customer-facing digital experiences, though it often requires more heavy lifting on setup and administration than newer AI-native tools.

To help narrow down which tool fits your team best, let me know:

• What are your core apps/platforms you desperately need to search across (e.g., Google Workspace, GitHub, Salesforce)?
• Are you looking for a simple search-and-find bar for employees, or an AI assistant that can take action inside those tools?
• Roughly how large is your organization?