AI enterprise search: find company documents by asking a question

Why isn't SharePoint search or a shared drive enough?

Because you have to know the right word. Microsoft describes the free search built into Microsoft 365 as keyword-based, with no semantic search. It finds files that contain your terms or have a similar name.

But people rarely remember file names. They remember the client, the project, or who wrote it. "The proposal we sent that auto repair network last year" has no useful keyword in it.

What you get back is a list of files to open one by one. The McKinsey Global Institute (2012) found knowledge workers spend nearly 20% of their week searching for and gathering internal information.

What is AI enterprise search?

It's search that understands what a question means. You type the way you'd ask a colleague, and it finds documents on that topic, even when they use different terms.

It often relies on RAG, short for retrieval-augmented generation. The AI first pulls the relevant passages from your documents, then writes its answer from them. It does not answer from memory.

Saména reads your documents ahead of time and links them by client, project, method and team. Search starts from that map of your company, in your own vocabulary.

Finding a document vs. getting an answer: what is the difference?

Finding a document means getting the right file. You open it, read it and pull out what you need. That alone helps when keyword search came up empty.

Getting an answer means asking the question itself, such as "Which method did we use for this client?" The agent reads the relevant documents and answers, citing each source so you can check.

Saména does both. It links back to the original document and can turn it into an answer, a memo, a Word file or a PowerPoint deck. Our guide "AI agents for business: definition, examples and how to set one up" covers what these agents do beyond search.

Can you search by client, project, method or team?

Yes, and that is usually how people look for things. Because every document is linked to the others, one question can combine several criteria.

• By client: everything produced for a given client, whatever folder it sits in
• By project: the meeting notes, deliverables and exchanges tied to one project
• By method: past projects run with a given approach, so you can reuse what worked
• By team: who worked on which client and on what kind of project

Who sees what: access and confidentiality?

With Saména, you pick which folders get read in SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox. A folder you didn't pick is never read. Access is read-only: no file is changed, moved or kept.

What Saména retains from your documents is encrypted with a key unique to your company, and the master key is stored outside the database. Servers are in France, and the database is in the European Union.

Your documents are read by models from Mistral AI, under a contract that rules out training on your data. Details are on the page "Where does our data go with enterprise AI?".

Copilot, Glean, ChatGPT or Claude connectors: how do they fit a small business?

Microsoft Copilot Search understands plain-language questions and covers Microsoft 365 plus more than 100 connectors. It requires a Copilot license, a per-user add-on to Microsoft 365. It shows each person what they can already open, so review your sharing settings before rollout.

Glean is an AI-powered enterprise search platform. It advertises more than 275 connectors and respects each connected app's permissions. Pricing isn't published: you have to request a demo.

ChatGPT and Claude offer connectors to SharePoint or Microsoft 365, switched on by an admin. The assistant then searches the files each employee can open. Terms vary by plan, so check with the vendor.

These tools search your files at the moment you ask. Saména has already read your documents and linked them by client, project, method and team, and its engineers build agents for your tasks. "Which AI for your business? The options in 2026, and how to choose" compares these options.

Where does your team use it day to day?

In the Saména app, where your agents already know your documents, with no copy-pasting.

They're also available from Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot. Either way, every answer links back to the document it came from.

How the connection to your files works is explained in "AI connected to SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox: how does it work?".

Frequently asked

Do we need to rename or reorganize our files first?

No. Your documents are read the way they're filed today. Links between clients, projects, methods and teams come from what the documents say.

Does AI search replace SharePoint search?

No, it adds to it. If you know a file's name, SharePoint search does the job. AI search helps when you know what a document is about but not where it is.

How do I know the AI did not make up an answer?

Every answer cites the documents it came from. You open the source and check before reusing what it wrote.

Which document sources are supported?

SharePoint, OneDrive and Dropbox, read-only. You choose which folders are read, and you can start with a single department.

How much does AI enterprise search cost for a small business?

With Saména, a one-time setup fee based on your document volume, then a monthly subscription for the whole company with unlimited users. We share pricing during the demo.