Glean vs Copilot is the shortlist on most enterprise IT desks in late 2026. The scene is familiar: the Head of Knowledge wants a single search box across 40 SaaS tools, the CIO is sitting on an existing Microsoft 365 contract, and the board wants one AI answer by Monday. Glean is the strongest pure enterprise-search product on the market, with 275+ out-of-the-box connectors and buyer-reported pricing around USD 50 per user per month plus a USD 15 AI add-on. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a USD 30-per-user add-on on top of an E3 or E5 base and ships inside the apps your team already lives in.
Both are serious products and both have real gaps. Neither is hosted in Europe by default in the way a German procurement team would like, and neither finishes a cross-system process on its own - the user still has to click into the real system and do the work. This explainer compares them side by side on price, strengths, DSGVO and what each wins at, and then shows the third path: with Superkind’s ready-made AI team you do not buy a search index or a chat window, you buy an AI employee that does the task in your programs - with 1,500+ integrations and hosted in Europe.
Key takeaways
Glean wins on cross-system enterprise search: 275+ connectors, a knowledge graph tuned to your org, and a quote-only price typically reported around USD 50 per user per month plus USD 15 for Work AI, minimum roughly 100 seats.
Microsoft 365 Copilot wins inside the Microsoft stack: SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint grounding, USD 30 per user per month add-on on top of an E3 (USD 39) or E5 (USD 60) base.
Neither is hosted in Europe by default - Glean defaults to us-central-1 (GCP) with Frankfurt available on request; Copilot falls under the EU Data Boundary, but Flex Routing (on by default since 17 April 2026 on many tenants) lets inference leave the boundary during peak load, and Anthropic models in Copilot sit outside it.
Get a ready-made AI team instead of picking a search box - Superkind comes with employees (Knowledge Finder, Onboarding Buddy, Request Triage) that work in Outlook, Teams and Slack and do the task in your programs. Start free with unlimited users, or build your own.
Stay in control, keep the data in Europe - Superkind runs on OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Google models, all processed in Europe, with 1,500+ integrations, GDPR compliant, EU AI Act aligned (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), no training on your data; you decide which steps need approval.
Your AI team for enterprise knowledge work
What is the difference between Glean and Microsoft Copilot?
Glean is an enterprise-search and knowledge platform. It builds an index and a knowledge graph of your company’s SaaS, email and documents through 275+ connectors, enforces source-system permissions and layers a chat assistant on top. Microsoft 365 Copilot is an AI assistant embedded in the Microsoft apps your team already uses: it grounds answers in your Microsoft Graph (SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Teams, Office) and drafts, summarises and plans inside Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams. One of the next layers is Superkind: a model-agnostic AI employee you write to in Outlook, Teams or Slack like a colleague, that uses OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Google models under the hood and does the task in your programs with 1,500+ integrations - hosted in Europe.
The one-line summary
Glean is the search layer across every system. Copilot is the AI layer inside Microsoft 365. Neither is a colleague who finishes the task. Superkind does the work across your programs, with your approval, in Europe.
Glean vs. Copilot at a glance
The headline table. Superkind is the row you can realistically pick for a European team that cares about hosting, which systems are already in use and whether the AI actually does the work.
| Criterion | Superkind | Glean | Microsoft 365 Copilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Works directly with your programs | Yes - 1,500+ integrations (DATEV, SAP Business One, HubSpot, SharePoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Slack) | Search and retrieval across 275+ connectors1,2 | Native in Microsoft 365; other systems via Copilot Studio connectors |
| Does the task, not just answers | Yes - finishes tasks in your programs, with approval where you want it | Partly - prompts and actions, most tasks still end with a person | Partly - drafts and summarises in Microsoft apps; agents via Copilot Studio |
| Hosting / Data protection | EU, GDPR, DPA, EU AI Act aligned | Default us-central-1; Frankfurt on request3,4 | EU Data Boundary, but Flex Routing allows out-of-EU inference11,12 |
| Training on your data | Never | Not on customer content (per Glean legal)3 | Not on commercial tenant data |
| Approval in your programs | Yes - you decide which steps wait for approval in Outlook, Teams or Slack | Not a core feature; user approves by acting | Not a core feature; user approves by acting |
| Channels | Outlook, Gmail, Teams, Slack, web app | Browser app, Chrome extension, Slack/Teams apps | Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint, web |
| Price (2026, excl. VAT) | Free start up to EUR 150 credits; Business from EUR 50/month for the whole company, unlimited users | Quote-only; buyer-reported ~USD 50/user/month + ~USD 15 AI add-on, ~100-seat minimum6,7 | USD 30/user/month add-on on top of E3 (USD 39) or E5 (USD 60) base8,9,10 |
| Minimum users | None - unlimited users at every paid level | ~100 seats commonly reported6 | None, but base M365 licence required per seat |
Who wins at what
Each product is strongest in its own territory. The useful question for a buying decision is where the work actually sits.
Where Glean is ahead
- Cross-system search quality - 275+ out-of-the-box connectors across the common SaaS stack (Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, Slack, Notion, Workday, GitHub, Google Workspace and more) with a knowledge graph tuned to your org.1,2
- Permission-aware retrieval - Glean inherits and enforces source-system permissions, so people only see what they already have rights to.2
- Mixed-vendor reality - if the company runs HR in Workday, dev in GitHub, CRM in Salesforce and docs in Google Drive, Glean indexes all of them under one query.
- Prompt library and Work AI - the generative add-on offers chat, prompt templates and simple actions on top of search results.
- On-prem option for regulated firms - Glean describes an on-premises deployment architecture built with Dell for customers with strict data-residency needs.5
Where Microsoft 365 Copilot is ahead
- Native Microsoft 365 reach - grounded in Microsoft Graph (SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Teams, Office), so the answers you draft and the files you work on are the same thing.
- Works where staff already are - Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, no new interface to learn, no Chrome extension to push out.
- One vendor, one bill - a single contract change for a Microsoft-standardised shop, with existing admin, SSO and conditional-access controls.
- Copilot Studio - a low-code builder for agents on top of Dataverse and Microsoft connectors, useful for bespoke flows inside the Microsoft estate.
- EU Data Boundary baseline - commercial tenant data is stored and processed in the EU by default (with the Flex Routing caveat below).11,12,13
Where enterprise teams feel the gap
- Neither does your work - both stop at the chat window or the search result. The analyst still copies the number into Excel; the accountant still books the invoice in DATEV.
- Neither is European-first - Glean defaults to US hosting with Frankfurt on request4; Copilot now routes outside the EU Data Boundary during peak load under Flex Routing11,12.
- Neither waits for approval - if a reply must be checked before it goes out, the person is the approval step.
- Overlap in Microsoft shops - if Microsoft 365 is 80 percent of the sources, Glean’s advantage over native Copilot grounding narrows and the stacked cost is hard to defend.
Pricing in 2026
Both vendors publish pricing that only tells half the story. All numbers below are from vendor pages or current third-party analyses, with their publication context named. As of October 2026. Prices are excl. VAT.
Glean: quote-only, with a large floor
- No public list price - Glean quotes custom contracts; its public pricing page now redirects to the home page.
- Buyer-reported base - roughly USD 50 per user per month for the search platform, with ranges from around USD 45 to USD 80 depending on scale and term.6,7
- Work AI add-on - commonly reported as around USD 15 per user per month on top of the base, for the generative assistant and prompt library.6,7
- Minimum commitment - sources commonly cite a minimum of around 100 seats and typical annual deals starting around USD 100,000; larger deployments higher.6
- What it means - Glean is unlikely to land under a six-figure annual bill for a Mittelstand shop, and the headline per-seat number is only part of the final cost once connectors, Work AI, SSO and support are added.
Copilot: a $30 add-on on top of an E3 or E5 base
- Add-on price - Microsoft 365 Copilot is USD 30 per user per month on annual commitment, or USD 31.50 paid monthly.8,9,10
- Base licence required - Copilot cannot be purchased standalone; eligible bases are M365 E3, E5 or Business Standard/Premium.9,10
- Base prices rose in July 2026 - E3 moved from USD 36 to USD 39, E5 from USD 57 to USD 60; the Copilot add-on itself did not change.9
- All-in cost per seat - about USD 69 per month for E3 + Copilot and USD 90 for E5 + Copilot; a Business SKU add-on (Copilot Business) sits at roughly USD 21 per seat.9,10
- What it means - cheap-looking at USD 30, but the real spend on a Microsoft-standardised floor runs USD 69 to 90 per seat before volume discounts.
| Plan | Superkind | Glean | Microsoft 365 Copilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | EUR 0, up to EUR 150 in credits, no credit card, unlimited users | No free tier | No free tier for the add-on |
| Entry per seat | From EUR 50/month for the whole company (not per seat) | ~USD 50/user/month base + ~USD 15 Work AI6,7 | USD 30/user/month add-on + E3 base USD 398,9 |
| All-in per seat (common deal) | From EUR 50/month for 25 or 250 users | ~USD 65/user/month total6,7 | ~USD 69/month on E3, ~USD 90/month on E59,10 |
| Minimum users | None | ~100 seats6 | None, but M365 base per seat |
| Cost for 100 users / year | From EUR 600/year on Business | About USD 78,000/year all-in6,7 | About USD 82,800/year on E3; USD 108,000 on E59,10 |
| Enterprise | Custom; dedicated support with SLA, SSO/SCIM, DPA, audit log | Custom; higher-tier Enterprise Flex and Core Suite | E5 + Copilot; Enterprise Agreement discounts |
The per-seat trap
Both Glean and Copilot scale with headcount. If 100 people get a licence and 35 use it, you still pay for 100. Superkind scales with work, not seats: one price for the whole company, so letting everyone use it is the lowest-friction choice (EUR 100 covers up to 1,000 tasks or 5,000 questions on Business; as of October 2026). For the full Copilot breakdown, our Microsoft Copilot Pricing 2026 explainer goes deeper.
Data protection and EU hosting
This layer touches contracts, HR records and customer conversations. Where it runs and what it is allowed to do with that data decides more than any benchmark. The honest state in late 2026.
- Glean - US-based service, default hosting us-central-1 on GCP; Frankfurt (europe-west3) is offered as a preferred region for Cloud-Prem or on customer request4. An on-premises deployment option built with Dell exists for regulated firms5. Glean’s legal page commits to handling personal information under GDPR3, but hosting location is not the default for standard SaaS. Check your contract.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot - commercial tenant data falls under the EU Data Boundary, so most storage and processing runs inside the EU13. Microsoft enabled Flex Routing for EU and EFTA tenants on 17 April 2026, which allows LLM inferencing to run outside the EU Data Boundary during peak demand, encrypted, on by default on many tenants (admins can review and disable it)11,12. Anthropic models in Copilot were added as a subprocessor in January 2026 and are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary13. Our Is Microsoft Copilot GDPR Compliant? piece covers this in detail.
- Superkind - hosted and processed in Europe, GDPR compliant, EU AI Act aligned (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689)14, DPA via the Trust Center15. Uses OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Google models processed in Europe.
For a German or EU enterprise team, this is the first filter. If the Datenschutzbeauftragte, the Betriebsrat or a customer audit asks where personal data and your contracts are processed, “us-central-1 with Frankfurt on request” or “EU Data Boundary with Flex Routing out-of-EU on by default” is a different answer than “hosted and processed in Europe, DPA signed, no training”. If a pure Microsoft comparison is what you need, see Microsoft Copilot vs. Company Brain.
How it works with Superkind: your AI team for enterprise knowledge work
Superkind is the AI employee for your team: you write to Superkind by email (Outlook or Gmail), in Microsoft Teams, in Slack or in the Superkind web app, like a colleague, and Superkind does the task in your programs. Hosted and processed in Europe, GDPR compliant, with 1,500+ integrations into DATEV, SAP Business One, HubSpot, Salesforce, SharePoint and Excel. Superkind runs on models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral and Google - you do not choose the model, you choose the AI employee, and it picks the one that is best at the task in front of it.
Glean finds the answer. Copilot drafts a reply. Neither finishes the job in your real systems. Superkind brings a ready-made AI team that searches across SharePoint, Teams, Outlook and the CRM, then does the task - with your approval wherever you want it. Use them right away, adapt them, or build your own.
Knowledge Finder
AI employee for enterprise knowledge and company search
A sales engineer in Teams: "What is our current failover SLA for the German retail package?" An ordinary chatbot guesses. The Knowledge Finder reads the master services agreement in SharePoint, the latest change in the architecture handbook and the clause in the HubSpot contract, and answers in the channel with the exact wording and three sources. Routine answers run on their own.
+ 1,700 moreOnboarding Buddy
AI employee for onboarding and people operations
Monday 08:15. New hire Lena asks in Teams how to request a parental-leave day. The Onboarding Buddy reads the handbook in SharePoint, checks her contract in Personio and answers with the exact process and the request link - and files the ticket for HR when she clicks. Every new joiner gets the same week-one answers without a person in the loop.
+ 1,700 moreRequest Triage
AI employee for IT and HR request triage
Daniel emails IT: "Need VPN access to the finance network for an audit tomorrow." Request Triage reads the mail, checks the policy in SharePoint and the group policy in the admin app, drafts the approval request for the finance lead and the audit log entry. For routine resets and licence assignments it just does the work. Anything that grants new access waits for approval.
+ 1,700 moreEvery employee is ready to use right away. Or build your own on the platform.
Safe by default
The AI team reads contracts, HR records and customer data. Superkind keeps it in Europe, never uses it to train models and uses whichever model (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Google) fits the task - all processed in Europe.
- Hosted and processed in Europe
- GDPR compliant
- Aligned with the EU AI Act
- No training on your data
- DPA through the Trust Center
From the first task to your own app
The same path on this topic: the move from “which search box do we buy” to a working AI team happens in four stages. Each one builds on the last.
- 1
Start
Ready in minutes. Sign up for free at app.superkind.ai, ask the Knowledge Finder in Teams “What is our failover SLA for the German retail package?” and watch it answer with sources from SharePoint and HubSpot - with no 100-seat minimum and no base licence to buy first.
- 2
Relief
Tasks become routines. “Every new-joiner question in #onboarding-* channels: answer from the handbook and file the ticket in Personio” is one sentence, and the Onboarding Buddy takes it from there. You decide which steps wait for approval and which run on their own.
- 3
Knowledge
Learns from day one. Every task makes Superkind smarter. The Company Brain holds your customers, prices, policies and the tone of your contracts, so the next SLA question already knows which clauses matter to you. When the sales engineer leaves, the knowledge stays.
- 4
Growth
When it gets more complex, you do not start over. Build a custom knowledge app with its own interface on the Superkind platform, on top of what the AI team already knows - your own Super App. Built yourself or with the Superkind team, and it all belongs to you. If a stronger model ships next year, the app keeps running.
Send Superkind your first question
Start for free in Outlook, Teams or Slack. See the AI team at work on real contracts, policies and customer records.
When to pick which
A simple decision frame for the next steering-committee slide. You do not have to pick the same tool for every department.
- Pick Glean when your knowledge truly lives across 15+ SaaS systems outside Microsoft, search quality is the main pain, you can defend a six-figure annual bill with at least 100 seats, and US hosting (or on-prem with Dell) is acceptable to your security review.
- Pick Microsoft 365 Copilot when Microsoft 365 is 70 percent or more of your source landscape, you already have E3 or E5 seats, your team spends its day in Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, and you accept the Flex Routing default and Anthropic-outside-EU caveat.
- Pick both when you are a large enterprise whose Microsoft 365 and non-Microsoft SaaS footprints are both huge; a few organisations run them in parallel and accept the double bill.
- Pick Superkind when the point is not better search but finished work: tasks in DATEV, HubSpot, SAP Business One or SharePoint; approval in Outlook or Teams; unlimited users across the company for one price; European hosting and processing by default; and the freedom to use whichever model fits each task without rewriting anything if the model landscape shifts. The companion piece Glean alternatives goes deeper on Glean-specific swaps.
- Start with a single task - not a tool. The task where an AI answer still ends in ten minutes of clicking into a system is the one that tells you whether search or a chat window is enough.
Conclusion
Glean vs Copilot is two serious products solving the same half of the problem. Glean is the strongest cross-system enterprise-search layer on the market; Copilot is the most natural AI layer for a Microsoft-standardised shop. Both leave the user to copy the answer into the real system and do the work, and neither is hosted in Europe by default in the way most German procurement teams want. If search is what your team really needs, buy the one whose data footprint matches yours - Glean outside Microsoft, Copilot inside it.
If what your team really needs is finished work - in DATEV, HubSpot, SharePoint, SAP Business One, Outlook, Teams or Slack - a search licence or a chat add-on is the wrong purchase order. The step that pays off this week: pick one real task where a search result still ends in ten minutes of clicking into your systems. Send it to Superkind in Outlook, Teams or Slack. Approve the first result. Watch the AI team finish the task across your programs and leave the data in Europe.
Frequently Asked Questions
Glean is the stronger pure enterprise-search product, with 275+ out-of-the-box connectors across the most common SaaS stack and a knowledge graph built around company-wide relevance. Microsoft 365 Copilot is the stronger assistant when Microsoft 365 is already the center of gravity: SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Outlook and Office are grounded natively, and a Copilot licence sits inside an existing Microsoft contract. If search quality across many non-Microsoft systems is the goal, Glean usually wins; if the data mostly lives in Microsoft 365 and users want a chat window in Teams and Word, Copilot usually wins.
Glean does not publish list prices. Buyer-reported figures in late 2026 centre around roughly $50 per user per month for the base search platform, plus around $15 per user per month for the Work AI / generative add-on, with a minimum of around 100 seats and typical annual deals around $100,000 or more. All numbers are third-party estimates - Glean quotes custom contracts, so your price depends on scale and term.
Microsoft 365 Copilot is $30 per user per month on annual commitment ($31.50 paid monthly) as a strict add-on. It requires an eligible Microsoft 365 base plan: E3 (now $39/user after the July 2026 increase) or E5 ($60/user), or Business Standard/Premium. All-in cost per seat is around $69 for E3 plus Copilot and around $90 for E5 plus Copilot. As of October 2026. Copilot Business is a cheaper add-on for Business plans at roughly $21 per user per month.
Microsoft 365 Copilot falls under the EU Data Boundary for commercial customers, so tenant data is stored and most processing runs inside the EU. The catch: since 17 April 2026 Microsoft enabled Flex Routing for EU and EFTA tenants, which lets LLM inferencing run outside the EU Data Boundary during peak demand (encrypted, on by default on many tenants; admins can review and disable it). Anthropic models in Copilot are currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary. Glean is a US-based service with default hosting in us-central-1; Frankfurt (europe-west3) is available as a preferred region for Cloud-Prem or by customer request, and Glean also offers an on-premises deployment option built with Dell. For strict, default EU hosting with a single DPA to sign, Superkind is the European choice: hosted and processed in Europe, EU AI Act aligned, no training on your data.
Both are assistants. Glean is primarily enterprise search and a chat on top of your search index; it can trigger prompts and simple actions, but most tasks still end in a person doing the next step in the real system. Copilot drafts, summarises and answers inside the Microsoft apps, and with Copilot Studio an admin can build agents that act in Dataverse and other Microsoft connectors. Neither finishes a cross-system process on its own by default. Superkind is designed around that gap: it uses 1,500+ integrations (DATEV, SAP Business One, HubSpot, SharePoint, Excel) to do the task in your programs, with your approval wherever you want it.
Glean works without Microsoft 365, but a Microsoft-heavy company usually sees a lot of Glean’s value overlap with what Copilot already covers natively. Copilot delivers very little value if your work is not in Microsoft 365, and most of its reach assumes SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Teams. Both have connectors to non-native systems, but each is strongest inside its own territory.
Superkind is the AI employee for your team: you write to it in Outlook, Teams or Slack like a colleague, and it does the task in your programs with 1,500+ integrations. It is model-agnostic (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, Google, all processed in Europe), hosted in Europe, GDPR compliant, EU AI Act aligned, with a DPA through the Trust Center. Pricing is one price for the whole company with unlimited users - free start up to EUR 150 in credits, Business from EUR 50 per month (Stand: Oktober 2026). It is not a pure search box and it is not an M365 add-on; it is the layer that finishes the work both of them hand back to the person.
Related Articles
- Glean Alternatives for EU-Hosted Enterprise Search
- Microsoft Copilot Pricing 2026: What Each Plan Costs for Business
- Is Microsoft Copilot GDPR Compliant?
- Microsoft Copilot vs. Company Brain
- Glean vs. Company Brain: Which Fits Your Knowledge Work?
Sources
- Glean - Platform: Connectors (275+ out-of-the-box connectors)
- Glean - Glean vs Claude Enterprise (connector count and categories)
- Glean - Legal (GDPR commitment)
- Glean docs - Supported GCP Regions for Cloud-Prem (default us-central-1, Frankfurt europe-west3 option)
- Sacra - Glean on-premises deployment with Dell
- GoSearch - A guide to Glean pricing (buyer-reported $50-$75/user/month + $15 AI add-on, ~100-seat minimum)
- Workativ - Glean pricing breakdown 2026
- Microsoft - Microsoft 365 Copilot (official product page, $30/user/month)
- Redress Compliance - Microsoft 365 Copilot Pricing 2026 (E3/E5 increases, all-in cost math)
- ActivePieces - Microsoft 365 Copilot Pricing: Plans and Costs (2026)
- Microsoft Message Center MC1269223 - Flex Routing in the EU and EFTA (17 April 2026)
- Changepilot - Microsoft 365 Copilot Flex Routing EU Data Boundary (MC1269223)
- Dr. Datenschutz - Microsofts EU Data Boundary: Fortschritt mit Vorsicht
- EUR-Lex - Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (EU AI Act)
- Superkind - Trust Center (DPA)
Send Superkind your first task.
Start for free in Outlook, Teams or Slack. Or let us show you in 30 minutes how it runs in your systems - with 1,500+ integrations and all processed in Europe.