As artificial intelligence sweeps through the workplace, business leaders face a critical fork in the road. Do you build your own internal AI tools, rely on platform-bound assistants like Microsoft Co-Pilot, or adopt a best-in-class enterprise AI solution like Glean?
If your goal is to increase productivity, retain talent, and gain a competitive edge in the AI era, the answer is clear: you need a purpose-built, intelligence-amplifying solution—deployed with speed and strategy.
Let’s unpack why Glean, supported by a specialist partner like Generation Digital, outpaces other options on the market—and how it future-proofs your business in the AI race.
What Is Glean?
Glean is a cutting-edge AI-powered workplace search and knowledge discovery tool. It connects to your entire tech stack—Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Jira, Confluence, Salesforce, and more—and enables employees to find exactly what they need, instantly.
But this isn’t just keyword search. Glean uses advanced AI and contextual understanding to surface insights, not just results. Whether it’s a buried deck, a comment thread, or a decision made six months ago, Glean finds it—and presents it securely, respecting all permission structures.
Why Glean Beats Building Your Own Enterprise AI
It’s tempting for some IT leaders to consider building their own internal AI tools. But the reality is:
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It’s slow and costly. Building, maintaining, and scaling an internal AI tool is a full-time commitment, often costing more people and time than buying a ready-to-deploy solution.
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AI talent is scarce. Most organisations lack in-house machine learning and NLP expertise and prompt engineering to build anything close to Glean’s capability.
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Security and compliance risks are higher. Internal builds often lack robust permissions, data governance, and audit trails critical for enterprise use.
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UX is never up to scratch. Even if the back end works, most internal projects fall short on design, search ranking, and usability.
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You fall behind. While you’re building, your competitors are already reaping the benefits of tools like Glean.
In short, internal AI projects risk becoming expensive science experiments that sap resources and fail to deliver impact.
Microsoft Co-Pilot Isn’t Enough
Microsoft Co-Pilot offers helpful productivity features inside Microsoft 365—but that’s exactly the problem: it’s confined to Microsoft’s ecosystem. For modern enterprises that use tools like Slack, Notion, Asana, Google Drive, and more, Co-Pilot is blind to vast swathes of your organisational knowledge.
Co-Pilot relies heavily on Microsoft Graph and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), which can produce inconsistent, hallucinated, or incomplete results when lacking context.
Meanwhile, Glean connects across all your tools, builds a deep contextual understanding of your organisation’s knowledge, and returns trusted, permission-aware answers that people can act on. There is no guesswork, no hallucinations, just clarity.
Why ChatGPT Isn’t Fit for Enterprise Search
While generative tools like ChatGPT are impressive, they aren’t built for enterprise knowledge work. They:
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Don’t natively integrate with enterprise platforms or tools.
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Can’t respect access permissions or compliance controls.
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Often hallucinate, even when grounded in context.
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Offer no audit trail or accountability.
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Have limited real-time visibility into your organisation’s data.
They’re great for ideation, but when it comes to finding trusted information inside your business, they’re no match for enterprise-grade solutions like Glean.
Glean as an Intelligence Amplifier: Preparing for the Next Generation of Work
In a recent interview with The Guardian, Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder and AI pioneer) said:
“Start using AI deeply. It is a huge intelligence amplifier.”
This is exactly what Glean offers. It doesn’t replace your staff—it amplifies their ability to think, create, collaborate, and act. It levels up knowledge workers, reduces time lost to searching, and frees them up for higher-value tasks.
It also aligns perfectly with what the next generation of talent will demand: AI that helps them do their jobs better, faster, and with more clarity.
By deploying Glean, you’re not just solving for today—you’re future-proofing your workforce for the AI-native era.
Why Work With Generation Digital?
Implementing Glean with an experienced partner like Generation Digital accelerates your journey. You’ll get:
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Strategic deployment tailored to your systems and teams.
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Quick wins and fast adoption, not long build cycles.
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Change management and training to embed Glean in your culture.
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Best-practice support from a team that understands your industry and your workflows.
As a trusted consultancy working across the public and private sectors, Generation Digital makes AI adoption painless—and ensures your investment drives real outcomes.
Final Word: In the AI Arms Race, Speed and Focus Win
The organisations that win the AI race won’t be the ones that dabble or try to build their own half-working tools. They’ll be the ones who:
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Deploy high-impact AI now
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Enable their staff to work smarter
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Stop reinventing the wheel and focus on value
Glean, supported by Generation Digital, gives you everything you need to win—today and tomorrow.
Ready to explore what Glean could do for your business?
Get in touch with Generation Digital to see a live demo, understand your options, and take the first step toward a more intelligent workplace.