CustomGPT.ai Blog

20 Best Enterprise Search Software We Recommend in 2026!

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28 min read

More than ever, companies are embracing enterprise search software. Its global market size is expected to reach about $8.85 billion by 2030.

enterprise search software

With enterprise search tools, teams can save valuable time by quickly finding the information they need across all the company’s data sources. For teams working across many repositories, it also helps to understand how to unify fragmented knowledge sources into one AI search experience

If you’re looking for the right enterprise search software for your business or team, you are in the right place.

After testing many tools, I settled on 20 enterprise search tools worth your time. I’ll share their features, pros, cons, and pricing plans.

I’ll even show you how to choose the ones that are right for you.

Keep reading!

TL;DR

  • Enterprise search software works like your company’s internal Google that pulls relevant info from the company’s scattered data, such as emails, docs, databases, and connected apps like Slack, using AI. It helps employees find answers quickly.
  • Top enterprise search software:
    • 1. CustomGPT
    • 2. Glean
    • 3. Coveo
    • 4. Meilisearch
    • 5. Elastic Enterprise Search
    • 6. Algolia
    • 7. Lucidworks Fusion
    • 8. Sinequa
    • 9. Microsoft Search
    • 10. Google Cloud Search
  • Features to consider when choosing enterprise search software are:
    • Semantic search quality that goes beyond keywords for smarter results
    • Easy integrations with your everyday tools (Slack, Google Drive, Notion, Confluence)
    • Customizable AI agents for automation
    • Analytics dashboards for usage insights
    • Strong security, like SOC 2 and GDPR, to keep and protect sensitive data
  • Enterprise search tools typically cost between $10 and $100+ per user per month. Enterprises with special needs can request custom pricing plans.

How We Selected These Enterprise Search Tools

  • With my team, I researched and identified the search tools industry experts and leading enterprises use. I watched interviews, listened to podcasts, and read on third-party websites.
  • I signed up and tested all the tools for three weeks. My team and I used them in our daily work and signed up for additional data sources to perform thorough tests. 
  • We assessed ease of use, semantic search accuracy, AI features, supported data sources, security certifications, and automation features.

Top Enterprise Search Software Comparison

Tools Features Ease of use My rating Base price Best for
CustomGPT
  • Customized AI, with Industry-leading accuracy (benchmarked)
  • Citation‐backed answers with inline source links
  • Connect all your data: 1,400+ file formats + broad enterprise connectors (Drive, SharePoint, MCP,

Notion, Confluence, Zendesk, Slack)

  • No-code customization of functionality and appearance
  • Fast time-to-value, reliability across SMBs and small enterprises
Very easy ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5/5 Standard: $99/month + RAG API access SMBs to small enterprises who want to deploy enterprise search functionality rapidly, without extensive dev resources.
Glean
  • Uses semantic search and NLP context to improve relevance
  • Offers analytics, reporting, search insights
  • Fine-grained access control / permission-aware search
  • AI / context-aware search
  • Connection to many apps and data sources (Google Workspace, Slack, docs)
Easy ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Not public Larger companies seeking to manage enterprise knowledge and employee productivity.
Coveo
  • Intent-aware relevance and natural-language query support.
  • Analytics and insights: dashboards to track search metrics (click-through, zero-results), content gaps, user journeys.
  • Unified index that brings together structured and unstructured data from many sources.
  • Cloud multi-tenant architecture
Moderate ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5 Contact for pricing Large enterprises with complex search and content management needs.
Meilisearch
  • Hybrid search (AI + keyword)
  • Search-as-you-type (prefix updates)
  •  Flexible indexing, ability to customize searchable/displayed attributes
  • Typo tolerance (fuzzy matching)
Moderate ⭐⭐⭐ 3.5/5 Cloud: $20/month Small and medium businesses mostly interested in websites and document search
Elastic Enterprise Search
  • App Search and Workplace Search
  • Semantic / vector / hybrid search
  • Flexible deployment (cloud, hybrid) as part of Elastic ecosystem
  • Notifications via email, webhooks, IBM Resilient, Jira, Microsoft Teams, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, Slack, xMatters
Moderate ⭐⭐⭐ 3.5/5 Standard: $99/month Developers and large organizations seeking to add advanced search to their applications, websites, and internal workflows.
Algolia
  • AI search, semantic search, instant search
  • Analytics
  • Personalization
  • APIs
Easy ⭐⭐⭐⭐

4/5

Contact for pricing Fast, product-focused search experiences.
Lucidworks Fusion
  • Semantic search
  • Knowledge discovery
  • Analytics
  • Relevance tuning
  • Workflow automation
Moderate ⭐⭐⭐

3.5/5

Contact for pricing  Large enterprises with complex search needs.
Sinequa
  • Enterprise search
  • AI assistants
  • Document discovery
  • Multilingual search 
  • Compliance features 
Moderate  ⭐⭐⭐

3.5/5

Contact for pricing Regulated industries like finance and health.
Microsoft Search
  • Microsoft 365 integration
  • Document search, people search
  • Workplace knowledge discovery
Easy ⭐⭐⭐

3/5

Included with Microsoft 365 plans Organizations already using Microsoft 365.
Google Cloud Search
  • Google Workspace search
  • Natural-language results
  • Document discovery
  • Security controls
Easy ⭐⭐⭐

3/5

Offered with eligible Google Workspace plans Google Workspace-based companies. 

 

Best Enterprise Search Software

1. CustomGPT

  • My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.5/5  
  • Base price: Standard – $99/month + RAG API access
  • Integrates with: Slack, Notion, SharePoint, Wix, Framer, Squarespace, Confluence, YouTube, Google Drive, HubSpot, Zapier, Zendesk, Shopify, WordPress

 

  • Best for: Business owners, IT managers, and teams wanting to go live fast with reliable AI. 

First on our list of the best enterprise software is CustomGPT. It lets you create AI agents, personalize them, and ask questions.

You can also deploy them on your website or share them with your team via a link. CustomGPT also lets you analyze your latest prompts and manage your content sources.

CustomGPT - top enterprise search software

Creating your agent is so simple. Simply pick a data source and choose the use case that best describes your agent. 

It could be enterprise search, customer support, or even a revenue-driving sales chatbot. Then you can start searching. 

user prompt and ai agent response

That’s not all! For example, you can connect CustomGPT to your Slack workspace

This way, your AI agent can respond to messages in Slack channels, and you can control who can use it inside the organization.

slack ai agent deployment with customgpt

We also created an intelligent partner for you called CustomGPT.ai Copilot. It’s more or less your personal AI assistant. Ask it to summarize documents, draft next steps, or cite the source behind an answer.

CustomGPT.ai Copilot on enterprise search software

Finally, CustomGPT comes with a dashboard that shows how many hours your AI agent has saved you over the past week. It also shows the total number of conversations, queries, and queries per conversation. 

What I Loved About CustomGPT

  1. Agents

If you’re an IT manager preparing a company report, you might need a lot of information for that. Your AI agent will save you hours of searching by instantly finding the right data for you. 

This will prevent you from having to search through hundreds of documents. 

The AI agent can also take action for you. 

It’ll automatically update CRMs, refresh documentation, or fill in content gaps based on your company’s data. It does this using tools like agent actions, MCP connectors, our API, and Zapier.

On CustomGPT, you create such an agent by clicking “New Agent” on the sidebar.  

create new agent on enterprise search software

Next, you will have to pick the data source for your agent. This means where the agent will be getting data from. 

There are many data sources, like YouTube, Google Drive, File Upload, WordPress, and more. 

But for this tutorial, let’s go with the website.

pick data source on enterprise search software

Enter your website’s URL to start.

add url and create agent

You must now choose the use case that best describes your agent. It could be “Customer Support,” “Website Copilot,” “Enterprise Search,” or “Revenue Agent.

Let’s go with Enterprise Search.

agent setup pop-up window

Once created, it will propose questions that you can use to start your research. But if you already have your own question, you can enter it in the search bar below.

prompt textbox on enterprise search software

Let’s go with “What percentage of companies surveyed in 2024 were not happy with the deliveries from their existing marketing agency?”

The Agent will give you a straight and accurate answer, along with a link to the source of its data.

agent response after user prompt

You can then click the hyperlink. It’ll take you to the exact source where you can confirm the information.  

click on hyperlink to confirm information

CustomGPT’s simplicity makes it one of the best enterprise search software in the market.

  1. CustomGPT.ai Copilot

The CustomGPT.ai Copilot acts as your intelligent partner. Whenever you need help with anything, you can just prompt it.

customgpt.ai copilot textbox

For example, you could just say, “I need help with my marketing strategies.”

sample prompt on enterprise search software

The response can include source-grounded detail, and you can download it for review or follow-up.

chat between user and customgpt.ai copilot

  1. Dashboard

Our Dashboard is designed for marketing teams. It shows how many hours your agents saved you during the week. You also have an overview of the total number of conversations and guests. 

And one amazing thing is that you can see the countries where those conversations are from. 

dashboard feature on enterprise search software

The dashboard also shows how your team is using the tool. For example, it shows how many queries were made, who sent them, where they came from, and how many were successful. 

query analytics on enterprise search software

In addition, the dashboard’s Customer Intelligence feature lets you dive even deeper, giving you an inside look at chatters’ experiences with your agents.

Where are the gaps in your knowledge base? How often are customers discussing certain keywords?

How often are they happy or upset with their conversational experiences? This tool helps you answer all these questions.

overview of queries

What I Enjoyed vs What Gave Me a Hard Time

What I Enjoyed 👍

✅ The clean interface makes it easy to locate all the features on the sidebar menu

✅ You can create a custom agent in three clicks

✅ The platform integrates with HubSpot, Slack, Notion, WordPress, Zendesk, and Zapier

✅ The dashboard tells you how many hours your agents save you every week 

What Gave Me a Hard Time 👎

❌  The total batch size limit for uploading files is 1GB, but you can either split them into smaller parts or connect sources like Google Drive or SharePoint to automatically sync your files while you focus on other tasks.

 

Best For

  • Business owners, IT managers, and teams seeking software to create AI agents for enterprise search and website copilot.

Pricing

  • Standard: $99/month
  • Premium: $449/month
  • Enterprise: Contact for pricing

CustomGPT pricing plans

2. Glean

  • My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5  
  • Base price: Not public 
  • Integrates with: Box, Confluence, GitHub, Google Drive, Jira 
  • Best for: Large companies with task automation needs

Next on this list of the best enterprise search software is Glean. 

Their search engine is somewhat similar to Google and offers many filters to help find information.

Glean - premium enterprise search software

When searching on Glean, you can select your preferred source from the results found. You can also use filters such as Updated, Type, or From to make the results more precise.

glean search results page

The Chat is within Glean’s AI assistant, where you can enter prompts, tag people or documents, or upload a file. You can then ask the assistant to summarize a particular file or action, and it will do exactly that.

glean ai assistant slack summary

Its Directory feature shows all the employees in an organizational chart. You can click on an employee to see everything about them. 

Their name, position, location, and even social handles.

directory feature on enterprise search software

What I Loved About Glean

  1. Home 

On Glean, after adding your source, you can use the search bar on the homepage to do your search. It can be a “roadmap presentation.”

glean homepage and search bar

The search page reminded me of Google.

The left side of the interface shows all your search results with the exact sources.

serp of an enterprise search software

You can, for example, click “Gong,” which has 7,000 results. The entire page will display only these results.

search filtered by gong

If you click the “Updated” filter, you can specify the time range for the results that will show up.

updated feature on glean search results page

By clicking “From,” you can choose the exact employee whose results you want the search page to show. There are also filters like “Type,” “Account,” “Owner,” and “Participants.”

teammate list on enterprise search software

Another interesting thing is the “Summarize” button next to every result on the search page. It helps summarize the content of your page if you don’t want to read the whole document.

ai summarize button on enterprise search software

  1. Chat

Glean Chat is the AI assistant that you can use to generate answers, summarize documents, and perform many other actions. You can use prompts to start.

chat feature on enterprise search software

You can use this prompt: “Summarize the last 3 days for the #industry Slack channel.” The Assistant will instantly start generating answers.

slack discussion summarized by ai assistant

If you click the “+” button in the search bar, you can tag people or docs, filter data, and attach a file.

find documents on glean

  1. Directory

In large organizations, you might not have the opportunity to meet all employees. With the Directory feature, you can view all of them on the platform. 

You can easily see who takes certain actions, along with their department and role.

directory feature in the sidebar

You can also view the company’s organizational chart. 

organizational chart of enterprise search software

You can just click on one employee to have more details. It will show their full name, role, location, when they first joined, and all their social handles.

select an employee for more details

What I Enjoyed vs What Gave Me a Hard Time

What I Enjoyed 👍

✅ The organizational chart shows all employees with their personal details

✅ You can summarize any research with their AI

✅ Loved that there are many filters to help locate your employee

What Gave Me a Hard Time 👎

❌ Doesn’t offer a trial to explore first

❌ Glean is for larger enterprises with very deep pockets, and not for SMBs or small companies, so pricing isn’t listed publicly

 

Best For

  • Larger companies with contracts in the six-figure range that want enterprise-grade security and large-scale deployment capabilities. 

Pricing

  • No public pricing page

3. Coveo

  • My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4/5  

 

  • Base price: Contact for pricing
  • Integrates with: AWS, Box, Confluence, Dropbox, Google Drive 
  • Best for: Large enterprises with complex search needs

We will continue this list of the best enterprise search software with Coveo. 

It offers many features across projects, machine learning, and analytics, and its search page is somewhat similar to Glean’s.

Coveo - superior enterprise search software

Before you browse Coveo, you need to add sources: name and URL, for instance. After that, you can search and have access to clickable links.

add link and browse on coveo

As I mentioned earlier, their search page is similar to Glean but with fewer colors. When you enter a word, you will see different sources with the number of results.search page of an enterprise search software

To be organized, you can create projects for the team. You can select the project type, say, “IT employee portal,” then name it and add a description.

project overview on enterprise search software

Another option is to create a catalog for your business. You’ll simply name the catalog, include a description, and select object types such as variants and availability. 

Then add your products.

create first catalog on coveo

What I Loved About Coveo

  1. Search Pages

Feature names usually differ from one tool to another. On Coveo, the Search Pages feature lets you search for data across the company. 

Let’s create one.

search pages feature

The first step is to choose the search page type from the options. It could be “Legacy Interface Editor,” “Code only,” or “Simple builder.” 

Let’s choose “Simple builder.”

add search page on enterprise search software

Next, name the search page and assign it to a project if there’s one.

add a search page

That’s it! You could edit, share, or delete the search page.  

search pages dashboard on enterprise search software

You can also open the search page.

open search page on coveo

Say you enter the word “Client” just to see what would happen. You’ll see many results and pages with the preferred word. 

Just scroll and select the result you want. 

search results page for client

  1. Content

The results your search pages show will always come from the content you feed it. And to constantly grow your search page, you need to add sources to your content.

Here’s how. Start by clicking “Source” under “Content.”

sources page with get started button

Choose a source of content. 

enterprise search software source of content list

You can name your source, add a URL, and assign it to a project (optional). 

add new web source on enterprise search software

The source has been added. You can click “Content Browser” to verify.

content browser feature

In the new window, enter “Privacy policy” in the search bar. All the pages related to this term will appear with the source referenced in the response.

search results for company policies

  1. Project

An organization has many departments and employees. So, you need to create a project for each use case to be organized.

Start by clicking “Projects” in the sidebar. After that, select “Add project.”

projects feature on enterprise search software

In the new window, choose a project type and add a name and a description. Then add an email address that serves as the point of contact.

create new project on enterprise search software

Now, select the resource used for this project and click “Create.”

select resource for project

There you go! If you followed these steps, you have just created your project.

You can also see an overview of the project and the resources.

project overview

What I Enjoyed vs What Gave Me a Hard Time

What I Enjoyed👍

✅ You can customize the search page with filtering options such as source, author, item type, etc.

✅ Has a section dedicated to commerce where you can create a catalog

✅ There are various resources you could use for your project: Properties, Search hubs, Extension, Pipeline, Search page, etc.

What Gave Me a Hard Time 👎

❌ The platform displays too many features on the sidebar, which can be confusing.

❌ Can be difficult for non-technical users because you need some coding experience to understand language models like Python.

 

Best For

  • Large enterprises with complex search and content management needs.

Pricing

  • Knowledge: Contact for pricing
  • Commerce: Contact for pricing

Coveo pricing plans

4. Meilisearch

  • My rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.5/5   
  • Base price: Cloud – $20/month 
  • Integrates with: JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Go, Rust, Java, Swift, Symfony, Firebase 
  • Best for: Small and medium IT companies

Meilisearch is the next entry in this list of enterprise search software. 

Not only does it let you retrieve information, but it also monitors your search performance and shows what users search for.

Meilisearch - known enterprise search software

Before you can use the search options on the platform, you’ll create a project, then an Index. You will then name your documents and choose how you want to import them. 

You can copy, edit, or delete your search results.

search preview feature

The Analytics feature shows total searches, total users, average click-through rate, and conversion rate. This means I can clearly see what people are searching for, which is great.

analytics feature

That’s not all! You can also monitor search performance and view the maximum number of search queries per second.

monitoring feature

Now, whenever you upload a file or document, it’s added to a batch. 

You can later see the status, type, index ID, batch ID, and duration. You will also see the coding version of your file.

batches dashboard on enterprise search software

What I Loved About Meilisearch

  1. Index

Imagine you are searching for a specific document inside your company’s software, but there are so many results. You will find it difficult to fish out the right information. 

The index helps you organize your documents in collections. This way, your searches are more relevant.

On Meilisearch, you will first create a project before accessing the main dashboard.

create project on meilisearch

Now, let’s create an index.

index feature on enterprise search software

Enter your index’s name.

add index name on enterprise search software

You can choose how you want to import your documents into your index. You can upload files, use mock data, or use a documentation crawler.

file import options on enterprise search software

If you choose “Documentation crawler,” you’d have to add a website URL.

meilisearch import import setup

Now, using the Search view, simply enter “SaaS.” Meilisearch will then provide you with the search results. 

On the left side, copy, edit, or delete the results.

search preview on enterprise search software

  1. Analytics

It’s important to know what users search for. 

Thanks to Analytics on Meilisearch, you can see the total searches, total users, click-through rate, and average click position. It also shows your conversion rate.

analytics feature in the navigation bar

There is more! The interface also displays all search requests over the past week, the most-searched queries, countries with the most searches, and searches without results.

analytics page on enterprise search software

  1. Monitoring

Sometimes, your team can upload so many documents that you don’t even realize the platform is now slowing down. The Monitoring feature tracks the platform’s performance and health. 

You can see search performance, how quickly it happens, and the maximum number of search queries per second.

monitoring feature on enterprise search software

You can also see the indexing performance with exact dates.

Indexing performance chart showing latency spike

What I Enjoyed vs What Gave Me a Hard Time

What I Enjoyed 👍

✅ Shows how fast searches and queries are happening through analytics.

✅ Displays the countries with the most searches 

✅ The platform can add a ranking score to your search to show its relevance

What Gave Me a Hard Time 👎

❌ Some features, such as monitoring, analytics, and chat, are still in beta mode

❌ File upload is limited so you can’t upload PDF files

Best For

  • Small and medium businesses with workflows that require extensive website and document searches. 

Pricing

  • Cloud: $20
  • Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Meilisearch pricing plans (1)

5. Elastic Enterprise Search

  • My rating: ⭐⭐⭐ 3.5/5  
  • Base price: Standard – $99/month 
  • Integrates with: Atlassian Jira, AWS, Azure, Beats, Box 
  • Best for: Developers and large organizations with complex dataset needs

Last but not least on our list of the best enterprise search software is Elastic Enterprise Search. 

It gives you access to large language models (LLMs) when you set up your chat experience. You can also customize your search with synonyms.

Elastic Enterprise Search - popular enterprise search software

You can create your chat experience. Simply upload a file, name the index, and select an AI connector. 

The AI chat shows the exact time you ask a question and receive a reply. 

ai chat on enterprise search software

To help broaden the search, you can create synonyms or other interchangeable terms.

create synonyms on enterprise search software

You already know that an index is a collection of documents. The Index Management interface shows the index you’ve created, the number of documents you’ve added, and its storage size.

elastic enterprise search index management page

What’s more, you can also access all your documents on the platform. The Discover feature lets you view the document and a summary of its content. 

discover feature in the sidebar

What I Loved About Elastic Enterprise Search

  1. Playground

On Elastic Search, you can use Playground to create and chat with your indexed data. You can do this using large language models(LLMs) or documents you’ve uploaded. 

create new playground on enterprise search software

To set up a chat experience, choose your preferred LLM. Or go to “Elasticsearch Data.”

From there, you can either create an index or start by uploading files (the next step).

chat setup window

Now, upload your files and name the index. You can also run an “analysis explanation” of the document, apply advanced settings, or delete it.

upload files on enterprise search software

Under LLM settings, select your AI connector and add clear instructions.

llm settings on enterprise search software

Then, adjust the playground context by selecting the exact number of documents to send and adding context fields.

In the search bar, enter your first question just to test the chat: “What are our marketing goals for 2025?”

set up playground context

The AI will save the exact time you asked the question before providing an answer.

playground query results

  1. Synonyms

Not everyone types the same thing when searching. 

One employee may search for “HR policies,” while another searches for “human resource guidelines.” 

Without synonyms, both searches could return different results when they are looking for the same information.

Let’s see an example of how to create synonyms.

Synonyms setup screen with get started button

First, name your synonyms set.

name synonyms set

Next, select a rule type. You can choose “Equivalent” or “Explicit. 

“Equivalent” means words with the same meaning. And “Explicit” refers to words that expand to include the terms on the right.

choose rule type on enterprise search software

Here are a few examples:

Explicit: sales strategy, sales growth, business equals sales 

Equivalent: objectives, targets, and aims are interchangeable words.

add rule and assign to index

  1. Discover

Searching for a document shouldn’t be a whole struggle. The Discover feature lets you browse, filter, and search all your documents. 

It also shows a summary of each document, including its attachment, author, and content. 

discover feature on enterprise search software

With “Field statistics,” you can see the field type, name, document percentage (%), and values.

field statistics table

On the right side of the interface, add and see all the available fields. It’ll help you understand the shape of your data. 

You can also explore a field in Lens.

add a field on analytic table

What I Enjoyed vs What Gave Me a Hard Time

What I Enjoyed 👍

✅ Loved that the platform specifies the exact time you do research, and the exact time AI responds to it.

✅ Can create synonyms to help expand your search

✅ You can choose your preferred AI connector for your chat.

What Gave Me a Hard Time 👎

❌ Can be difficult for non-technical users as the platform uses many advanced terms like inference endpoints.

 

Best For

  • Developers and large organizations seeking to add advanced search to their applications, websites, and internal workflows.

Pricing

  • Standard: $99/month
  • Gold: $114/month
  • Platinum: $131/month
  • Enterprise: $184/month

Elastic Enterprise Search pricing plans

Additional Enterprise Search Tools We Tested

Here are 15 extra enterprise search tools I used during my tests:

  1. Algolia – Best for fast, product-focused search experience
  2. Lucidworks Fusion – Best for large enterprises with complex search needs
  3. Sinequa – Best for regulated industries like finance and healthcare
  4. Microsoft Search – Best for organizations already using Microsoft 365
  5. Google Cloud Search – Best for Google Workspace-based companies
  6. Amazon Kendra – Best for AWS-heavy enterprise environments
  7. Yext Search – Best for structured knowledge and brand-controlled answers
  8. Swiftype – Best for website and documentation search
  9. Mindbreeze – Best for unified enterprise knowledge access
  10. SearchUnify – Best for customer support and self-service portals
  11. AlphaSense – Best for financial and market intelligence search
  12. OpenSearch – Best for open-source, scalable search setups
  13. Haystack – Best for building custom AI search pipelines
  14. ZincSearch – Best for lightweight Elasticsearch alternative use cases
  15. Luigi’s Box – Best for e-commerce search and product discovery

What is Enterprise Search Software?

Enterprise search software is a tool that helps teams quickly find information across all the company’s data sources. Such information can be emails, files, documents, databases, or even cloud apps.

To give you an idea, it is like Google but for your company’s internal data. 

With Google, you search through the web. But with this software, you search through everything your company already owns.

For example, let’s say a new employee joins the company but doesn’t know who the CEO is. If they use enterprise search software like CustomGPT, they can ask: “Who is the CEO of the Company?”

recommended prompts and textbox with question

Not only will they receive an instant reply from the AI agent, but they will also see the source referenced in that response.

website url in ai agent response

They can then click it and verify the information.

website with ceo profile card

How to Choose the Right Enterprise Search Software

To choose the right enterprise search software, consider the following:

  • Ease of use
  • Features you require in your business
  • Pricing  and scalability
  • Integrations with other tools
  • Security and access control

Let me explain each point in detail. 

1. Ease of Use

The first factor to consider when choosing enterprise search software is ease of use.

This is very important because it determines how quickly your team can adopt and benefit from the tool. 

Complex enterprise search tools, though powerful, won’t be of much help since your team doesn’t understand it, let alone use it.

The truth is, in many companies (apart from tech companies), a good number of employees’ work doesn’t involve technical aspects. That team should be able to navigate easily and find what they need without relying heavily on technical support.

For that reason, the right enterprise search software should feel intuitive, with a clear display of features.

customgpt features in the sidebar

Search bars should be clearly visible. This way, you can quickly find the source your agent needs. 

search bar on enterprise search software

As a business owner, if you choose a tool that is really easy to use and intuitive, you will start seeing your employees’ performance improve. 

Take Elizabeth Planet, a leadership coach and advisor in the nonprofit sector with over 15 years of experience.

elizabeth planet - about me page

She wanted an easier way for people to access her nonprofit library resources, but found out that most AI tools were too technical and complex.

She then discovered our platform, CustomGPT. This made it easy for her to build NonprofitAMA, a chatbot that answers questions using her own trusted content. 

textbox for the nonprofitama

To her, the process was easy since CustomGPT is a no-code platform.

Regarding NonprofitAMA, here’s what she said: 

“I added a couple of trusted sources to the chatbot, and the answers improved tremendously! – You can rely on the responses it gives you because it’s only pulling from [curated] information.”

quote by elizabeth planet

Elizabeth was able to achieve this because the platform she chose was easy to use. 

Her story shows that with CustomGPT, even users who aren’t tech-savvy can easily build powerful AI assistants.  

2. Features You Require In Your Business

You should also consider the features your business needs when choosing enterprise search software. 

After all, every business or company has different priorities. 

You shouldn’t choose an enterprise search software just because it has a long list of features. You should rather look at one with features that align with you: 

  • Business goals
  • Company size
  • Complexity

A small team should prioritize:

  • Simplicity
  • Automation features like AI-assisted search
  • A user-friendly dashboard
  • Predictable pricing
  • Reliable infrastructure
  • Citation‐backed answers with inline source links

attributes of customgpt ai agent

This will save them time without requiring a full IT department.

agents feature on enterprise search software

But let’s say you’re an IT manager at a small tech startup with 5-10 people. It’s likely you wear many hats. 

You may manage tools, data, and team support, and this keeps you so busy. 

Because of your limited time, an AI-assisted search feature will help your team members find answers they need without your help.

When someone asks, “What are the standard API limits for standard users and admin/internal systems?” The system automatically replies and pulls the right document.

agent shares pdf document

As a business owner, customer support manager, or content operations manager, you need an AI agent that reflects your brand.

CustomGPT lets you choose the AI agent’s name, role, agent avatar, and branding colors. 

personalize agent on enterprise search software

You must be able to customize your agent behavior by setting up instructions.

ai agent customization

The platform you choose should let you select your agent’s capability, specify where it generates responses from, and the AI model.

intelligence settings of ai agent

Whether you are a small business owner or a large organization, you must definitely identify the features you actually need. If not, you might pay for features you will never use.

3. Pricing and Scalability

When choosing enterprise search software, other factors to consider include pricing and scalability.

Most platforms use a per-user, per-month pricing model and typically cost between $20 and $100. This means the more members you add, the higher the cost.

Entry-level pricing for small businesses ranges from $20 to $50 per user per month. Meanwhile, enterprise-level plans can go well beyond $ 300 per user.

The reason why you should really consider this factor is that as your business grows, so does the price. 

For instance, a solution that is affordable for 10 users today might become costly and difficult to manage for 100 users. 

Now, some enterprise software tools (like Glean and Coveo) do not have their pricing plans public. But if you really want to choose your software, you should have access to pricing plans and know what each offers.

Elastic Search’s Standard tier, for instance, costs $99 per month. This plan gives you access to their Search AI, API platform, Language client, and Elasticsearch Query. 

On the other hand, CustomGPT’s Standard tier is $99/month. With this plan, you can create up to 2 AI agents, have 60M words storage capacity, 10,000 monthly uploads, 5,000 docs per agent, CustomGPT API, and more.

customgpt standard pricing plans

While both tools start at $99/month, CustomGPT offers predictable, flat-tiered pricing. But Elastic Search uses a resource-based model so cost may rise based on your storage, memory, and computing needs. 

Now, making such comparisons is a smart move. It helps you determine whether or not the platform will easily grow with you.

4. Integrations With Other Tools

Furthermore, if you want to choose the right enterprise search software, you must check if it integrates with other tools

As a business owner, it would be a nightmare to have a team that constantly switches between platforms and ecosystems just to find one document or email.

This is the importance of integration. And good enterprise search software should easily connect with the other tools your company already uses.

customgpt integrations with other tools (1)

It should integrate with popular platforms like Slack, HubSpot, Notion, WordPress, Wix, Framer, Squarespace, and Zendesk.

customgpt integration with popular tools

And of course, giants like YouTube and Shopify, alongside connectors like Zapier and APIs.

tool integrations of enterprise search software

5. Security and Access Control

When dealing with enterprise search software, security is essential because it touches sensitive data.

In terms of security, the software you choose should follow strict protocols for handling and storing data securely.

For example, at CustomGPT, we are SOC 2 (Type 2) certified and fully GDPR compliant.

customgpt compliance frameworks

Now, enterprise search software often connects with almost every system in your company: emails, documents, databases, and customer records. That’s why not everybody must have access to your information.

For example, if a particular team member doesn’t have access to a file in Google Drive, they shouldn’t suddenly see it in the search results. That would pose a high risk.

Now, it’s important to know who does what and when, and who has access to what

Again, when it comes to access, the right software should follow strict protocols for:

  • Product security 
  • Data security
  • Network security
  • App security
  • Endpoint security
  • Corporate security

security compliance of enterprise search software

Choose the Best Enterprise Search Software

There you go! Choosing the right enterprise search software isn’t easy. 

I’ve shared my experience with you after thoroughly reviewing each enterprise search software. Starting with CustomGPT, then Glean, Coveo, Meilisearch, and Elastic Enterprise Search. 

I’ve discussed what I liked and didn’t like about each tool, and given you a guide to choosing the right enterprise search software.

It’s now on you to make a choice. 

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