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The Glean alternative built for European enterprises
Glean is a strong product — one of the best-known names in enterprise search and workplace AI. But for many European teams, the evaluation stalls on the same three questions: Where does our data live? Who owns what we build? And why does deployment take weeks? Here's an honest comparison.
Cortex vs Glean at a glance
- Grounded answers with source citationsCortexYes·Every answer cites the exact passageGleanYes·Cites sources
- EU data residency / sovereigntyCortexYes·EU residency, Swiss company, GDPRGleanPartial·Verify per deployment
- Your data never trains a public modelCortexYes·Contractual guaranteeGleanPartial·Verify current terms
- Self-serve — no engineers requiredCortexYes·Experts build agents themselvesGleanPartial·Typically IT-led deployment
- Multi-step workflow agentsCortexYes·Skills AgentsGleanPartial·Limited
- White-label & embed in your own productCortexYes·Ship under your brand, or via APIGleanPartial·Limited
- Choice of underlying foundation modelCortexYes·Swap models without rebuildingGleanPartial·Limited
- Time to first agentCortexYes·MinutesGleanPartial·Weeks
Comparison based on publicly available product documentation as of July 2026. Competitors evolve — verify current capabilities before purchasing.
Where Glean is strong
Credit where due. Glean has years of maturity in enterprise search, a broad connector catalogue, and deep integrations across the standard SaaS stack. If your primary goal is unified internal search across hundreds of tools for a large, US-centric organisation — and you have the IT resources for an enterprise deployment — Glean deserves a place on your shortlist.
Where Cortex is different
Cortex wasn't built as a search bar for your SaaS tools. It was built for organisations whose knowledge is the product.
- 01Sovereignty is the default, not an add-on
Built and operated from Switzerland with EU data residency, GDPR compliance, and SOC 2 in progress. Your knowledge never trains a public model — contractual, not a settings toggle. Full sovereign AI details →
- 02You own what you build
Glean makes your knowledge searchable inside Glean. Cortex turns your knowledge into agents you own — white-labelled, embeddable in your own product, licensable to your own customers.
- 03Agents, not just answers
Beyond citation-backed Q&A, Cortex Skills Agents execute multi-step expert workflows. How teams use them →
- 04Self-serve, in minutes
No deployment project. A domain expert connects sources, shapes an agent, and deploys the same afternoon. Engineering is optional, not a prerequisite.
Which should you choose?
You're a large organisation whose core need is unified search across a big SaaS estate, US hosting is acceptable, and an IT-led rollout over several weeks fits your plan.
You need EU/Swiss data residency, want agents you can white-label and embed as your own product, want domain experts (not engineers) building them, or want a working agent this week rather than this quarter.
Many teams shortlist both — the fastest way to compare is to put your own documents in. Cortex takes minutes to try.