The matrix
At a glance, against the four products UK and EU enterprise buyers most often shortlist alongside AnswerVault.
| AnswerVault from £7/user/mo |
Microsoft Copilot | Glean | Guru | Claude / ChatGPT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Governed knowledge bases (approved docs only) | ✓ | — | Partial | ✓ | — |
| External access for partners and contractors | ✓ | — | — | Not published | — |
| Cross-ecosystem search (SharePoint, Drive, Confluence) | ✓ | M365-native | ✓ | ✓ | Limited |
| Knowledge graph / relationship-aware retrieval | ✓ | — | ✓ | Not published | — |
| Delivered in Teams, Slack, and web chat | ✓ | Teams only | ✓ | ✓ | Web only |
| AI included, no token costs or LLM subscriptions | ✓ | Needs M365 licence | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Self-serve setup, no IT project | ✓ | — | — | — | ✓ |
| Free tier, no commitment | ✓ | — | — | Not published | ✓ |
| Monthly billing, no annual lock-in | ✓ | Annual preferred | — | Not published | ✓ |
| Sovereign (non-US) deployment available | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Minimum seat count | 1 (free) | None | Not published (reported ~100) | Not published | None |
| Price per user / month | £7 | Add-on to a paid M365 seat | Not published | Not published | £16–48 |
Verified against each vendor's own pages, 24 September 2026. AnswerVault figures are Pro tier. Microsoft restructured Copilot licensing during 2026 across Copilot Chat (Basic), Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic) and Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium), plus a Copilot Business SKU and a Microsoft 365 E7 plan that includes Copilot, so no single per-seat figure applies. Glean has never published list pricing; reported figures come from customer quotes, not Glean. Guru withdrew published per-seat pricing during 2026 and now directs buyers to sales. Claude Team and ChatGPT Business £16–20; ChatGPT Enterprise from £48/user with a ~150-seat minimum, not re-verified in this pass.
Deep dives
Each comparison goes into where AnswerVault wins, where the competitor still makes sense, and the architectural differences that matter.
The governed knowledge layer Copilot is missing.
Why Copilot can't find your company documents, even when it has access to them, and the three gaps AnswerVault fills.
Read deep dive →Same graph, same coverage, fraction of the cost.
Glean is built for 1,000+ seat enterprises. If you have fewer, or just don't want a 6-week procurement cycle, here's what you get instead.
Read deep dive →Work with the documents you already have.
Similar architecture now. The differences are jurisdiction and whether you can see the price before the sales call.
Read deep dive →Governed, sovereign answers across your whole estate.
Rovo is Atlassian's native AI, tied to your Cloud subscription. AnswerVault adds approved-only answers, a sovereign option, and access beyond your Atlassian seats.
Read deep dive →Other alternatives
Claude and ChatGPT
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
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
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.
Build your own (DIY RAG)
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.