Purpose-built to get governed answers from your documents — not a general AI assistant, not an enterprise megaproject.
| AnswerVaultfrom £7/user/month | Microsoft Copilot | Glean | Guru | Claude / ChatGPT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Governed knowledge bases (approved docs only) | ✓ | — | Partial | ✓ | — |
| External access for partners and contractors | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Cross-ecosystem search (SharePoint, Google Drive, Confluence) | ✓ | M365-native | ✓ | ✓ | Limited |
| Knowledge graph / relationship-aware retrieval | ✓ | — | ✓ | — | — |
| Delivered in Teams, Slack, and web chat | ✓ | Teams only | ✓ | ✓ | Web only |
| AI included — no token costs or LLM subscriptions | ✓ | Requires M365 licence | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-serve setup, no IT project | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free trial | ✓ | — | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monthly billing, no annual lock-in | ✓ | Annual preferred | — | Annual preferred | ✓ |
| Sovereign (non-US) deployment available | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Minimum seat count | From 1 user (free) | No minimum | ~100 seats | 10 seats | No minimum (Team / Business) |
| Price per user / month | £7 | £14–24 | £40–50+ | £12+ | £16–48 |
AnswerVault Pro tier. Copilot annual billing £14, monthly £24; M365 base licence required. Glean pricing is not publicly listed; figures based on widely reported customer quotes. Guru All-in-One from £12/user with a 10-seat minimum. Claude Team and ChatGPT Business £16–20; ChatGPT Enterprise from £48/user with a ~150-seat minimum.
Each comparison goes into where AnswerVault wins, where the competitor still makes sense, and the specific architectural differences that matter.
Why Copilot can't find your company documents, even when it has access to them — and the three gaps AnswerVault fills.
Glean is built for 1,000+ seat enterprises. If you have fewer, here's what you get at a fraction of the cost.
Guru makes you re-create your knowledge as cards. AnswerVault works with your documents where they already live.
Excellent general-purpose AI. They do what they're designed to do very well. But they don't persistently index your SharePoint, Google Drive, or Confluence; they don't build a knowledge graph across your document estate; and they don't deliver governed, source-backed answers inside Teams or Slack. Different product category. If your users need AI that knows your organisation's documents — not the internet's documents — you need a governed knowledge layer, not a chat product.
GoSearch is a federated enterprise search product. Useful if all you need is a search box. AnswerVault is cheaper per user, delivers answers through Teams and Slack rather than just a search page, and gives you a knowledge graph that understands how documents relate — not only which ones match your query.
Notion AI is strong if your organisation lives entirely in Notion. It cannot index SharePoint, Google Drive, or Confluence as governed sources. Most organisations have knowledge spread across more than one platform — AnswerVault is built for that reality.
Three to six months of engineering. Fragile connectors. No governed permission model. No knowledge graph unless you build one. No ongoing maintenance budget. Every team that starts down this road discovers the same thing at month three. AnswerVault's architecture was built for a global pharmaceutical company under regulatory constraints — the hard problems are already solved.
AnswerVault doesn't replace your document stores — it sits on top of them. Your files stay in SharePoint, Google Drive, and Confluence exactly where they are. AnswerVault connects via OAuth, indexes the content you choose, and gives your team a single place to ask questions across all sources.
Nothing moves. AnswerVault reads from your existing sources via secure OAuth connections. No migration, no duplication, no new tools for your team to manage.
Choose exactly which folders, drives, or spaces to include. Add or remove sources at any time. Only the content you select becomes queryable.
Instead of searching SharePoint, then Drive, then Confluence — your team asks one question and gets an answer drawn from all connected sources, with citations.
Start on the free tier, or talk to us about your document estate.