Advances in AI are transforming the enterprise search market. As organizations face challenges in extracting insights from growing data spread across multiple platforms, AI-powered enterprise search tools are emerging as alternatives to traditional solutions. These tools offer contextualized insights, faster deployment, and better security, addressing the evolving needs of modern businesses.

This guide compares the leading enterprise search vendors with emerging solutions. We'll explore how different architectures address key challenges around security, scalability, and time-to-value, helping you make an informed decision for your organization's needs.

1. Qatalog: real-time AI enterprise search

Qatalog is a cutting-edge AI enterprise search tool that prioritizes data security and real-time information retrieval. It doesn’t copy or store your enterprise data but accesses information directly from source systems, ensuring up-to-date results and minimizing security risks.

Unlike traditional enterprise search engines that find the information, Qatalog takes it a step further with agentic workflows. It can automate business processes by incorporating various technologies:

Retrieve: Find the right information.
Decide: Make decisions based on the information (based on decision trees).
Generate: Create or update information based on user prompts.
Act: Send this information to the right tool or system to complete a task.

For example, it can handle routine work like generating reports or sending emails, freeing up people to focus on more important tasks.

Key features

AI-powered search: Qatalog offers a combination of federated search with RAG technology to find and synthesize your company documents and databases, including Google Workspace, Microsoft Suite, BigQuery, Snowflake, and Salesforce.
Enterprise data integration: With plug-and-play connectors, Qatalog easily integrates into your existing tech stack, ensuring a smooth setup without causing disruptions.
Self-service capability: Non-technical users can access AI-powered answers independently, reducing the need for data or support teams and improving overall operational efficiency.
AI with access to real-time data: Qatalog retrieves data directly from your sources without indexing, ensuring access to the most accurate, up-to-date information crucial for scaling operations.
Enterprise-grade security and compliance: Qatalog prioritizes data security and compliance with ISO 27001, SOC2-Type II, HIPAA, HiTrust, and GDPR standards. It does not train its models on your company’s data.
Built-in permissions: Qatalog automatically adheres to enterprise-level access controls without requiring custom integrations.

Pricing

14-day free trial available.
Starts at $15 per user/month for the Pro Plan.

2. Azure AI Search: Microsoft's cloud-based search as a service

Azure AI Search (formerly Azure Cognitive Search) is a robust search engine that helps developers create their own cloud search solutions. It provides infrastructure, APIs, and tools for building search experiences over private, heterogeneous content in web, mobile, and enterprise applications. It’s different from Microsoft Search, which is integrated across all Microsoft 365 apps and services.

Key features

Vector search, full-text search, and hybrid search capabilities.
Rich indexing with integrated data chunking and vectorization
Semantic ranking and relevance tuning
Integration with Azure AI services and Azure OpenAI

Pricing

Various tiers available based on usage and features.

Check out the best AI tools for business and productivity.

3. Elastic Enterprise Search: scalable open-source solution

Built on the Elasticsearch engine, Elastic Enterprise Search offers developers a powerful and flexible enterprise search as a service platform. It suits various business needs, such as customer-facing search experiences and workplace search platforms. It also combines different types of searches (structured and unstructured) and copies your company data for faster retrieval.

Learn more about copying and indexing data for AI search.

Key features

Full-text search capabilities.
Behavioral analytics dashboards.
Scalable data store.
Available for cloud, on-premises, or hybrid deployments.

Pricing

Tiered pricing starts at $95 per month.
A pay-as-you-go option available.

Explore Elasticsearch alternatives.

4. Algolia: developer-friendly search and discovery platform

Algolia provides a search and data discovery API that allows developers to build fast and relevant search experiences across various platforms, making it one of the best enterprise search software options for technical teams. It’s also widely used in e-commerce and SaaS applications for its high-speed performance.

Key features

Fast, typo-tolerant search results.
Extensive options for customizing search relevance and ranking.
Analytics and A/B testing for optimizing search performance.
AI-powered personalization and recommendations.

Pricing

Offers a free plan for developers, with pay-as-you-go and enterprise plans available.

5. Coveo: AI-powered enterprise search and recommendations

Coveo is a comprehensive AI-powered enterprise search solution that focuses on delivering personalized experiences across various touchpoints. It combines data from multiple sources to offer a unified search experience. It also provides predictive recommendations based on past interactions and searches.

Key features

Machine learning for improved search relevance over time.
Personalized search experiences for employees and customers.
Integration with CRMs, e-commerce platforms, and customer service systems.
Advanced analytics and insights to optimize content based on user behavior and search trends.

Pricing

Subscription-based model, starting at $18 per month.
Enterprise plans available upon request.

6. Amazon Kendra: AWS-powered intelligent search service

Amazon Kendra is a managed and easy-to-use enterprise search service powered by machine learning, ideal for businesses looking for a corporate search engine technology with advanced AI capabilities. It indexes various data repositories and lets users ask questions in natural

language.

Key features

Natural language processing for accurate, context-aware answers.
Integration with various AWS services and connectors for other data sources.
Continuous learning from user interactions to improve accuracy.
Pre-trained across multiple industry domains.

Pricing

Enterprise Edition is $1,008 per month.
Developer Edition is $810 per month.

7. Sinequa: AI-powered insight engine for large organizations

Sinequa offers an enterprise search platform designed for large-scale organizations with complex data environments, making it one of the top enterprise search vendors for big businesses. It indexes and retrieves data from structured databases, unstructured documents, emails, intranet platforms, and other diverse sources. It uses natural language understanding (NLU) to comprehend complex queries and retrieve relevant information from vast data lakes.

Key features

Unified search across multiple sources.
Advanced natural language processing and machine learning capabilities.
Capable of handling large-scale, multi-terabyte datasets.
No-code UI builder for configuring search interfaces.

Pricing

Subscription-based model, with costs depending on data volume and specific requirements.

8. Glean: enterprise search for extensive knowledge bases

Glean is an enterprise search software and AI knowledge management tool designed to help employees easily find information across a company’s vast knowledge base. It indexes all connected data for faster retrieval and improved productivity. However, if your company faces strict privacy restrictions and can’t implement Glean, several Glean alternatives offer similar features without copying or storing your data.

Key features

Indexes content across a wide range of workplace apps.
AI-powered contextual search based on user behavior.
Insights into how employees search for and use information.
Adheres to enterprise-grade security standards and respects existing access permissions across different apps.

Pricing

Glean’s pricing plans aren't public.

Key takeaways

When evaluating enterprise search solutions, it's essential to consider various factors. Here's a brief comparison:

Data handling: While most tools index data, Qatalog stands out with its real-time, non-indexing approach.
AI capabilities: All listed tools incorporate AI, but the level and type of AI integration vary.
Deployment: Options range from cloud-only (like Algolia) to flexible deployment choices (like Elastic Enterprise Search).
Scalability: Large-scale solutions like Sinequa and Azure AI Search are designed for enterprise-level scalability.
Industry focus: Some tools, like Amazon Kendra, offer pre-trained models for specific industries.

AI that works,