How to Use Glean in 2026: Step-by-Step Guide
Glean is an enterprise AI search and assistant platform that connects to a company's internal tools including Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Confluence, and Salesforce to give employees a single place to find information and get things done across their organization.
Glean, founded in 2019 by former Google and Facebook engineers, sits at the intersection of enterprise search and AI assistant. The core premise: knowledge workers spend an enormous fraction of their time looking for information that already exists somewhere in their organization's tool stack. Glean makes that information findable and actionable.
The product indexes content from 100-plus enterprise applications including Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Slack, Salesforce, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, Zendesk, and more, and builds a unified semantic search layer on top. Employees type a natural language question and get ranked results pulled from across the connected apps.
As of 2024-2025, Glean expanded beyond search into a full AI assistant capability called Glean Chat. This allows employees to ask complex questions and get synthesized answers with citations, not just links to documents but actual answers drawn from them. Glean Chat can also take actions: draft emails, create Jira tickets, or update Salesforce fields based on conversation.
Security and permissions are central to Glean's design. The system respects access controls from each connected application. If a user does not have permission to see a Confluence page, they will not see it in Glean results or Glean Chat responses. This is a meaningful differentiator for enterprise procurement teams.
Glean also offers an AI Apps platform, letting organizations build custom chatbots and workflows on top of its retrieval infrastructure.
Pricing is enterprise-only, typically $15 to $25 per user per month depending on volume and features negotiated. Glean is not suitable for small teams or individuals; the minimum deployment is generally 100 or more users. The company raised $260 million at a $4.6 billion valuation in February 2024.
Primary competitors are Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 shops, Notion AI for teams centralized in Notion, and enterprise search incumbents like Coveo and Elastic.
What You'll Need
- A Glean account (starting from $15/user/mo)
- A modern web browser or the Glean app
- Payment method for paid features
Getting Started
Create Your Account
Visit https://www.glean.com and sign up for a paid account. You'll need an email address to register.
Start Your First Conversation
Once logged in, you'll see the main chat interface. Type a question or task in the input box and press Enter. Glean supports text, search, analytics, integration — start with a simple text prompt to get familiar.
Natural Language Chat
Type your question or task in natural language. Glean excels at understanding context and providing helpful, detailed responses.
Real-Time Web Search
Glean can search the web in real time. Ask about current events, recent news, or request up-to-date information that may not be in the model's training data.
Pro Tips
- Be specific: The more context you provide, the better the response. Instead of "write an email," try "write a professional follow-up email to a client who hasn't responded in two weeks."
- Iterate: If you don't get what you need, ask for clarification or refinement: "Make it shorter" or "Use a more formal tone."
- Use examples: Show Glean what format you want by including an example in your prompt.
- Save useful conversations: Most platforms let you name and revisit conversations — organize by project or topic.
Common Use Cases
Productivity
AI tools for task management, scheduling, summarization, and workflow optimization.
Browse Productivity chatbots →Research & Analysis
Chatbots that help with data analysis, literature review, and in-depth research tasks.
Browse Research & Analysis chatbots →Finance & Business
AI assistants for financial planning, business strategy, market analysis, and accounting.
Browse Finance & Business chatbots →Troubleshooting
- Responses seem generic or unhelpful
- Add more context to your prompt. Specify the audience, tone, length, and format you need. Try starting over with a clearer description of your goal.
- The tool isn't responding or is slow
- AI chatbots can experience high traffic. Refresh the page and try again. Check the service's status page if issues persist.
- Output is too long or too short
- Explicitly specify the length: "in 100 words," "as a brief summary," or "in detail with examples."
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Glean free to use?
- Glean requires a paid subscription, starting from $15/user/mo.
- Do I need an account to use Glean?
- Yes, you need to create an account to use Glean.
- What can I use Glean for?
- Glean is an enterprise AI search and assistant platform that connects to a company's internal tools including Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Confluence, and Salesforce to give employees a single place to find information and get things done across their organization.
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