Product
Why AI Enterprise Search?
Self-hosted AI search that keeps your documents on your network — at a fraction of SaaS pricing.
The problem#
Enterprise knowledge is scattered across SharePoint, Confluence, Slack, Google Drive, call recordings, and file shares. Employees spend hours searching through multiple tools or asking colleagues. SaaS search platforms solve the discovery problem but require you to send all your corporate documents to someone else's cloud — and charge $15-25 per user per month for the privilege.
SaaS search tools
- ✗All documents indexed in vendor's cloud
- ✗$15-25/user/month recurring fees
- ✗Per-user pricing scales with headcount
- ✗Vendor controls the AI model and pipeline
- ✗No on-prem deployment option
AI Enterprise Search
- ✓Self-hosted — documents never leave your network
- ✓One-time license, not per-user subscription
- ✓Flat pricing regardless of user count
- ✓Bring your own LLM (OpenAI, Azure, Anthropic, Ollama)
- ✓Full control over data, models, and infrastructure
How AES compares#
| AES | Glean | Coveo | Microsoft Search | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Self-hosted (Docker) | SaaS only | SaaS only | M365 cloud |
| Data location | Your network | Vendor cloud | Vendor cloud | Microsoft cloud |
| AI answers | RAG with citations | Yes | Yes (add-on) | Copilot (E3/E5) |
| Multi-source | 8+ connectors | 100+ connectors | Custom connectors | M365 + Graph |
| LLM choice | BYOK (4 providers) | Built-in | Built-in | GPT-4 (Microsoft) |
| Permission-aware | Yes (source ACLs) | Yes | Configurable | M365 only |
Key differentiators#
🔒
Data sovereignty
Your documents, embeddings, and search queries stay on your infrastructure. No third-party SaaS sees your corporate knowledge.
💵
Predictable pricing
One-time license fee plus annual maintenance. No per-user pricing that scales as your organization grows.
🧠
Bring your own LLM
Use OpenAI, Azure OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, or self-hosted Ollama. Switch providers anytime from the admin settings — no vendor lock-in.
🐳
Docker-based deployment
Install in 15 minutes with Docker Compose. PostgreSQL + pgvector, Redis, and Celery workers are included.