Glean vs Adapt
Glean finds answers. Adapt takes action.
Glean is best-in-class enterprise search — if you fit its enterprise shape. Adapt is the integrated coworker that connects to your company’s systems, data, and processes, with its own computer to do real work. It finds the answer, then does the job — with no seat minimums and a focused rollout.Free to startNo seat minimums
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The Adapt approach
Search is step one. Doing the work is step two.
Glean and Adapt both answer questions across your tools with cited sources. The difference shows up the moment you want to act on the answer — where Glean hands you the result, Adapt runs the query, files the ticket, and updates the record in the same thread.
Connect your tools
CRM, billing, code, docs, warehouse — anything with an API. Personal connections first, shared when you invite the team.
Drop Adapt into Slack
Add Adapt to the channels where work happens and set a plain-English policy for when it chimes in.
Add skills and knowledge
Version-controlled skills teach Adapt how your company runs — and how to do the work, not just what is true.
At a glance
Adapt vs Glean comparison
Both products answer questions across your tools with cited sources and respect source permissions. The rows below highlight where they overlap and where Adapt goes further on execution, pricing, and getting started.
| Capability | Adapt | Glean |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise search across your tools | YesBuilt in | YesCore product |
| Cited answers with sources | Yes | Yes |
| Permission-aware access | YesScoped to connected accounts | YesKnowledge-graph ACLs |
| Org-wide shared knowledge & memory | YesShared knowledge, skills, and memory | PartlyMemory scoped per user |
| Takes action across systems | YesNative execution in a sandbox | PartlyAgent layer on top of search |
| Writes & runs code (SQL/Python) | YesLive managed sandbox | No |
| Slack-native working environment | YesTag @Adapt where work happens | PartlySlack integration for Q&A |
| Scheduled tasks & proactive triggers | YesCrons + event triggers that reason and act | PartlyAdmin-gated, off by default |
| Build & edit custom apps | YesDedicated Apps page | No |
| Connect any API yourself | YesAny REST API via key | Partly100+ prebuilt connectors |
| Free to start | YesFree to self-host | NoSales-led, paid POCs |
| Public, published pricing | YesPublished rates, itemized usage | NoCustom quotes only |
| No seat minimums | YesStart with one team | NoReported 100-seat minimums |
| SOC 2 Type II | YesType II certified | Yes |
Detailed comparison
A closer look at the differences.
The sections below break down where Adapt and Glean differ, one dimension at a time.
Find answers vs take action
Adapt
Search, then do the work
Adapt finds the answer and then acts on it in the same thread — runs the query, files the ticket, drafts the reply, updates the record, opens the PR. Most teams tell us finding the answer is step one; they need to act on it too. That second step is Adapt’s whole point.
Glean
Enterprise search and answers
Glean indexes your company’s tools into a permission-aware knowledge graph and answers questions with cited sources. It is a best-in-class place to find what your company already knows. Finding the answer is where Glean’s core job ends.
Acting across systems
Adapt
One coworker with its own computer
Every Adapt session runs on Adapt’s own computer — a managed sandbox that writes and runs SQL and Python, calls any API, chains sub-agents for complex work, and takes real actions across systems, with approvals where you want them. Shared skills and shared knowledge mean the same coworker handles any request from any team — no waiting for your vendor to ship the agent for your use case.
Glean
Agents layered on top of search
Glean has added agents on top of retrieval — most recently “independent agents,” starting with an on-call assistant in beta. Each is a specialized agent an admin provisions for one use case, shipped by Glean one at a time, inside the same enterprise-gated platform.
Glean: Introducing independent agentsWhat it costs as you scale
Adapt
Published pricing, free to start
Pricing is public: free to start, then a per-user plan with itemized usage, so you can see your spend per task. No seat minimums and 0% markup on your own model keys. A team can get answers out of Salesforce, Zendesk, or the warehouse without everyone buying a seat in those tools.
See Adapt pricingGlean
No public pricing, reported $50k+ minimums
Glean does not publish pricing — a sales process is the only way in. Third-party procurement data reports contracts starting around 100 seats and $50k a year (median near $99k), paid proof-of-concepts, and consumption fees now layering on top of per-seat licenses as agentic usage grows. Glean markets itself partly on cutting AI cost — a sign of how quickly spend scales.
Vendr: Glean pricing dataWhere it lives
Adapt
A Slack-native working environment and a web app
Tag @Adapt in any Slack channel where work already happens, or sign in at app.adapt.com for a dedicated chat surface with persistent searchable history and sources cited on every answer. Slack is not just an integration — it is where Adapt does the work.
Glean
Web app, browser, and integrations
Glean lives primarily in its own web app and browser extension, with a Slack integration for asking questions. It is the search box your team goes to.
Getting started
Adapt
Start with a focused workflow
Begin with one workflow and the systems it needs, then expand to shared integrations and more teams as you prove value. Adapt supports a focused rollout without an enterprise-wide launch.
Glean
Months of professional-services rollout
Glean is sold and deployed as an enterprise platform: a sales cycle, security review, org-wide indexing, and an implementation that leans on professional services and dedicated IT resources — third-party estimates put typical deployments at three to six months. Powerful at scale, heavy to stand up.
Shared context and memory
Adapt
A company brain that maintains itself
Adapt’s company brain is knowledge, version-controlled skills, and memory — shared across the whole org, not siloed per user. It builds and prunes itself as your team works: new knowledge gets saved, stale knowledge gets revised, and a top performer’s playbook becomes a skill everyone’s coworker can run. It does not just inform answers — it drives the work.
Explore the company brainGlean
A retrieval knowledge graph
Glean’s knowledge graph maps people, content, and activity to make search results sharper — six years of real retrieval investment. But it exists to ground answers, and assistant memory is scoped per user rather than shared as an org-wide working context.
Connecting your stack
Adapt
Any service with an API
Adapt connects to anything with an API through direct integration, not a fixed connector list. Bring a service Adapt does not ship by supplying an API key and it works — no waiting on a roadmap, no MCP-release dependency.
Glean
100+ deep prebuilt connectors
Glean ships 100+ deep enterprise connectors with rich indexing — a real strength, and more out-of-box coverage than Adapt today. Adding a system not on the list means waiting on Glean’s connector roadmap.
Who it’s built for
Adapt
The companies Glean isn’t shaped for
Adapt is built so any team can hire an integrated coworker without an enterprise-scale rollout: start free with a focused workflow, and scale from one person to the whole company. No seat minimums or implementation team required.
Glean
Enterprises with 100+ seats and an IT budget
Everything about Glean’s shape — seat minimums, paid proof-of-concepts, professional-services implementations, per-seat contracts — is designed for large enterprises. If that is you, Glean is a strong product. If it is not, there is no version of Glean sized for your team.
About the companies
Adapt
San Francisco, US-based
Adapt is headquartered in San Francisco and led by co-founder Sean Smith (CEO, previously GlareDB), with co-founder John Andrew Entwistle (Wander) on the board. $10M seed co-led by Activant Capital and Headline.
Glean
Palo Alto, founded 2019
Glean is built in Palo Alto, founded in 2019 by Arvind Jain (previously a Google distinguished engineer and co-founder of Rubrik). A large, well-established company — 1,000+ employees, customers in 27 countries, last valued at $7.2B.
Use cases
Real work, in Slack and the web app.
Not just finding the answer — running the query, filing the ticket, and taking the next step, with audit trails and approvals where they matter.
Cross-system answers from one question
“Which enterprise accounts have declining usage but no open support tickets?” Adapt joins HubSpot, Stripe, and your warehouse in seconds and posts the answer in Slack or a private chat.HubSpot, Stripe, BigQuery, Slack
Daily revenue and pipeline briefings
Scheduled briefings to the right channel every morning. Pipeline movement, at-risk renewals, marketing-attributed pipeline — sourced from live systems, not yesterday’s exports.Salesforce, HubSpot, Stripe
From answer to action in one thread
Find the at-risk account, then have Adapt draft the outreach, file the renewal task, and tag the owner — without leaving the conversation. Search is step one; Adapt takes step two.HubSpot, Linear, Slack
Triggers that fire on real events
Watch pipelines, deal stages, error rates, ad-spend anomalies. When something breaks, Adapt files the ticket, tags the right person, and includes context. With approvals required for actions you choose.Sentry, Linear, GitHub, Slack
Competitive intel on autopilot
Monitor competitor sites, pricing pages, and changelogs. Summary posted to #competitive at 8am, every day. The kind of work you keep meaning to set up.Web research, Slack
Customer success and churn signals
Flag accounts with declining usage, missed QBR prep, or open escalations. Adapt surfaces the churn risk before the renewal conversation, then drafts the play to save it.HubSpot, BigQuery, Slack
Questions
Adapt does answer questions across your connected tools with cited sources, so for many teams it covers the day-to-day search job. The bigger difference is what happens next: Glean’s core job ends when it surfaces the answer, while Adapt is built to take the action — run the query, file the ticket, draft the reply, update the record. If all you need is search, Glean is excellent at it. If you need the work done, that is where Adapt is different.
Glean ships 100+ deep prebuilt connectors, more out-of-box coverage than Adapt today. The question is which integrations actually matter to your team. Adapt connects to anything with an API through direct integration rather than a fixed connector list, so you can add a system Adapt does not ship by supplying an API key — no waiting on a connector roadmap. And once connected, Adapt can trigger actions in that system, not just pull data from it.
Glean is the established leader in enterprise search, with broad deployments and strong brand recognition. Adapt is a different category of product: an integrated coworker that connects to your company’s systems, data, and processes, executes work on its own computer, lives natively in Slack, and publishes its pricing, free to start with no seat minimums. Teams choose Adapt when finding the answer is only half the job and they want one place to do the rest.
Glean’s independent agents — starting with an on-call assistant in beta — are specialized agents that admins provision one use case at a time, built on top of Glean’s retrieval layer and sold inside the same enterprise platform. Adapt takes the opposite approach: one integrated coworker any teammate can tag for any job, powered by shared skills, shared knowledge, and live context from your tools. When you need a new workflow, you do not wait for the vendor to ship that agent — you ask for the work, then save it as a skill your whole team can reuse.
Yes — teams that don’t fit Glean’s enterprise shape are exactly who Adapt serves best. Third-party procurement data reports Glean contracts starting around 100 seats and $50k a year, which rules out most companies under a few hundred people. Adapt is free to start with no seat minimums, and scales from a focused first workflow to the whole company. Some of our customers evaluated Glean first and chose Adapt when the price and rollout didn’t fit.
Glean does not publish pricing; third-party data reports per-seat contracts with 100-seat minimums and consumption fees layered on top. Adapt publishes its rates: free to start, then a per-user plan with itemized usage and no seat minimums, so a team can begin small and grow from there. People can also get answers from Salesforce, Zendesk, or the warehouse without a seat in each of those tools, which is why license-cost reduction is a common reason teams move work to Adapt.
Finding the answer is step one.
Adapt takes step two.
Search across your tools. Then run the query, file the ticket, draft the reply, and update the record — in Slack or the web app, free to start with no seat minimums.