Efficient knowledge management is vital for keeping teams productive and informed, as research shows that the use of social technologies can raise the productivity of knowledge workers by 20 to 25 percent. Both Guru and Glean are knowledge management platforms that promise to improve the way organizations capture, store, and retrieve information. While each offers distinct features and benefits, choosing the right one depends on your team's specific needs. In this comparison, we'll explore the strengths and weaknesses of Glean compared to Guru, guiding you toward the best tool for your business.

Understanding Guru

Guru is your company’s AI Source of Truth—a governed knowledge platform that connects scattered data, delivers cited, permission-aware answers, and keeps information accurate automatically. Instead of relying on static documentation, Guru transforms your knowledge into a living, intelligent system that powers both people and AI.

Guru’s approach is built on three core pillars:

Connect: Guru unifies knowledge from across your tools—like Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, and Confluence—while preserving existing permissions and context. The result is a single, secure company brain that ensures every answer starts from trusted, verified data.

Access Everywhere: Your teams can interact with this connected knowledge through a built-in Knowledge Agent—asking questions in Slack or Teams, performing deep Research with citations in the browser, or even accessing verified knowledge through other AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Microsoft Copilot via Guru’s MCP Server.

Build Trust, Automatically: When subject matter experts verify or update information once, Guru automatically propagates that correction across every workflow. Combined with verification workflows, audit logs, and lineage tracking, it continuously improves accuracy—creating a trusted layer of truth for your entire organization.

What is Glean?

Glean is a leading platform designed for knowledge management and information retrieval. Developed by Glean, it's widely used by teams in tech and large enterprises for streamlining access to internal knowledge scattered across various platforms. Its core function revolves around providing users with unified search capabilities powered by AI, enabling fast and relevant search results across multiple internal systems like Google Workspace, Slack, and Microsoft 365.

Key features of Glean

Glean is designed to make finding internal information easier for companies with knowledge spread across different systems. Key features include:

• AI-powered workplace search: Search across multiple platforms in one query instead of manually checking Google Drive, Slack, or Salesforce

• Unified results: Aggregates information from all connected systems into a single interface

• Smart integrations: Connects with popular business tools for comprehensive coverage

Knowledge management for today's teams

Glean centralizes company knowledge across multiple tools and platforms, providing a single hub for all internal resources. This helps reduce the time employees spend searching for information—a significant issue, as the average worker spends nearly 20 percent looking for internal information—and ensures that valuable knowledge is easily discoverable across teams.

Prompt library

Glean's prompt library allows users to create and discover pre-made prompts that unlock more efficient ways to interact with AI-powered chat tools. This feature enhances productivity by providing quick access to common queries and actions.

Software integrations

Glean integrates with several popular tools like Slack, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365. This allows it to pull information from different sources, offering a unified search experience across various platforms.

Who uses Glean?

Glean is primarily used by large enterprises and organizations that operate in fast-paced industries such as technology, finance, and healthcare. Teams that frequently deal with scattered internal knowledge across various apps and tools will find Glean's unified search particularly helpful. Its AI-driven recommendations also appeal to teams looking to surface information they didn't know they needed.

Pros and cons of Glean

Pros:

• Unified Search Across Platforms: One of Glean's greatest strengths is its ability to integrate with multiple platforms, saving users time by reducing the need to switch between apps; creating a searchable knowledge record can reduce, by as much as 35 percent, the time employees spend searching for company information.

• AI-Powered Recommendations: The AI not only aids in search but also proactively recommends documents or communication threads that could be useful.

• User-Friendly Interface: Glean's interface is intuitive and clean, making it easy for employees to adopt and use without extensive training.

Cons:

• Limited Content Creation: Unlike other knowledge management platforms, Glean does not allow users to create content directly within the platform. Instead, it focuses purely on search and retrieval, making it more suitable for teams that already have their content created elsewhere.

• Complexity for Small Teams: Glean's strength lies in managing large amounts of dispersed information. Smaller teams may not need the robust search capabilities it offers and may find the platform overkill.

• Cost Considerations: Glean's feature set is designed for large organizations, which may make it more expensive and less cost-effective for smaller teams.

Guru vs. Glean

Both Guru and Glean address the challenges of knowledge management but take fundamentally different approaches. Glean focuses on AI-driven enterprise search across multiple apps, while Guru delivers a complete, governed AI Source of Truth—combining creation, verification, and AI-powered delivery in one platform.

Guru has outranked Glean in multiple categories in a G2 customer satisfaction report, largely due to its depth in governance, explainability, and trusted knowledge delivery. Here’s how they compare:

Guru's Strengths:

• Cited, Permission-Aware Search Across All Tools
  Guru provides AI-powered search and chat that surface accurate, cited answers across your entire stack—Slack, Salesforce, Google Workspace, and beyond. Every result is permission-aware and auditable, ensuring employees and AI assistants only see the information they’re authorized to access. A convenient browser extension brings answers directly into workflows, reducing time spent switching between systems.

• Customizable Homepages and Announcements
  Guru’s Team Hubs allow companies to create branded, customizable homepages that serve as centralized intranet-like hubs. Teams can highlight key updates, announcements, and AI-powered content recommendations—giving leaders control over what’s visible and ensuring that important knowledge reaches everyone.

• Verified Knowledge Creation and Management
  Unlike standalone search tools, Guru enables teams to create, verify, and maintain knowledge directly in the same platform. Verification workflows ensure information remains current and trustworthy, while lineage and audit logs provide complete traceability. This transforms knowledge management from static documentation into a living, self-improving system.

• MCP Server for Secure AI Interoperability
  The Guru MCP Server securely connects your company’s knowledge to external AI tools like Claude, Cursor, and Copilot. It enables governed question answering, research, and even content creation inside those tools—while maintaining Guru’s verification, permissions, and compliance controls.

Glean's Strengths:

• Robust Multi-Platform Search: Glean excels in organizations where knowledge is scattered across multiple tools and platforms. Its ability to pull from different systems like Slack, Google Workspace, and Salesforce makes it ideal for teams needing comprehensive search capabilities.

• AI-Driven Content Recommendations: Glean's AI goes beyond search, actively recommending relevant content based on user behavior and context, which is a key differentiator.

• Streamlined User Experience: Glean's simple, clean interface reduces friction for new users and makes it easy to implement across large organizations without the need for extensive onboarding.

Integration and User Experience:

Both Guru and Glean integrate with popular workplace tools like Slack, Google Workspace, and Salesforce. However, their approaches to how users interact with knowledge are quite different.

Guru goes beyond simple connectivity—its in-app knowledge creation, verification workflows, and policy-enforced governance create a seamless experience for teams that want to actively manage, improve, and trust their company knowledge. Employees can capture, update, and verify information without leaving their workflow, and with the MCP Server, they can even access Guru’s verified knowledge from other AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Copilot.

Glean, by contrast, shines in environments where information lives across many disconnected tools. Its strength lies in AI-powered search and personalized recommendations, helping users find content quickly across their organization’s data sources.

What customers are saying

Glean users appreciate how the platform simplifies access to information across various systems, making it easy to retrieve data both for internal use and when sharing with customers. One G2 reviewer noted, "The ability to easily access any information across our systems has been super helpful! I like to be able to see all possible options when either looking for information for internal needs OR when I need to share something with a customer."

Guru users, on the other hand, highlight its user-friendly design and how it improves knowledge management and collaboration within teams. As one Capterra reviewer shared, "My whole experience with Guru has been excellent. It greatly improved our team's knowledge management and collaboration operations. Guru's user-friendly design and powerful capabilities make it simple to generate, organize, and distribute information effectively."

Choosing the right AI knowledge platform for your team

Both Guru and Glean are powerful tools for managing company knowledge, but they serve different priorities:

• Choose Glean if: your main goal is Enterprise search and discovery across multiple platforms, with strong personalized recommendations for locating content scattered throughout your tech stack.

• Choose Guru if: you need a centralized, governed Source of Truth that combines creation, verification, and AI-powered delivery across all your workplace tools—ensuring every answer is accurate, cited, and permission-aware.

For organizations that value trust, explainability, and governance, Guru is the stronger choice. It connects your tools, automates verification, and powers both people and AI assistants with the same reliable knowledge.

Ultimately, the right fit depends on your workflow—but if you want an all-in-one AI knowledge platform that keeps information accurate and accessible everywhere you work, try Guru and see how an AI Source of Truth transforms knowledge management.

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