I tried the 6 best AI search assistants in 2025 to find one that actually works for a business

It feels like every week there’s a new "AI search" tool promising to change how we find information. But let's be real, most of them are just fancy wrappers for Google, built to search the public web, not to help you get any real work done.

That's where the interesting stuff is happening. We're starting to move beyond basic "AI search engines" and into "AI search assistants", tools that can securely tap into your company's internal knowledge and even take action for you.

So, I decided to cut through the marketing fluff. I spent time with the most popular tools to find the best AI search assistant that a business could actually use to unlock its internal data and automate some of the tedious parts of the job. Here’s what I learned.

What is the best AI search assistant?

First off, let’s clear something up. An AI search assistant isn't the same thing as an AI search engine like Perplexity or Google's AI Overviews.

Here's the simple difference: a standard AI search engine scours the public internet. It’s perfect for asking, "Who won the World Series in 1998?" An AI search assistant connects securely to your internal company stuff, your wikis, documents, old support tickets, and Slack channels, to give you answers that are actually relevant to your business.

The "assistant" part is what really matters. It's not just about finding info. It’s about summarizing it, personalizing it, and using it to do things, like triaging a support ticket, answering a new hire's question in Slack, or drafting a reply to a customer. It’s an active member of your team, not just a search bar you shout into.

My criteria for the best AI search assistant

I wasn't looking for the tool that could best answer "What is the capital of France?" I wanted something that would provide genuine value to a business. I judged them on five straightforward criteria:

1. How painful is the setup? Can you sign up and get going on your own, or are you stuck booking demos and talking to a sales rep for weeks?

2. What knowledge can it access? Does it only look at the web, or can it connect to the apps you use all day, like Slack, Zendesk, Confluence, and Google Docs?

3. Can you control it? Can you tweak its personality and tone? Can you tell it exactly which documents to use for certain questions? And, most importantly, can you tell it what to do?

4. Does it fit into your workflow? Does it live in another browser tab, forcing you to copy-paste all day, or does it work inside the tools you already have? Can it automate tasks like tagging tickets or escalating issues?

5. Is the price a mystery? Is the pricing clear and predictable? Or is it hiding behind a "Contact Sales" button, ready to surprise you with confusing fees that punish you for growing?

The top AI search assistants at a glance

This table gives you a quick look at how the top contenders stack up based on what really matters for a business.

The 6 best AI search assistants in 2025

After spending some quality time with each tool, here's my detailed breakdown of the best options out there, starting with the one that was the clear winner for business use.

1. eesel AI

eesel AI is less of a search tool and more of a workflow automation platform with a smart assistant at its core. It connects to all your company's scattered knowledge, help desks, wikis, private docs, chat tools, and uses it to not only answer questions but to automate frontline support, draft replies for agents, and handle internal questions right where your team is working.

The thing that put it at the top of this list for me was its ability to unify the internal knowledge sources that really count, like learning from thousands of your past Zendesk tickets to mimic your company’s tone of voice. Most other tools can't touch that kind of specific data. But its biggest advantage is the setup. You can actually be up and running in a few minutes, all by yourself. No mandatory demos, no sales calls. It even has a cool simulation mode that lets you test how the AI would have handled thousands of your past tickets, so you can see the potential ROI before you even turn it on for customers.

Pros:

• Super simple, self-serve setup with one-click integrations that get you going in minutes.

• It learns from your old support tickets to automatically match your brand's unique voice.

• You can create custom actions (like API calls, ticket tagging, and triage) for real, hands-off automation.

• The pricing is transparent and predictable, without any weird per-resolution fees that penalize you for being busy.

Cons:

• It’s laser-focused on business use cases (support, IT, internal knowledge), so it's not what you'd use for general web browsing.

• While the basic setup is a breeze, you might need a little technical know-how to get the most out of the advanced custom API actions.

Pricing:

The pricing for eesel AI is refreshingly clear. Plans are available monthly or with a 20% discount if you pay annually.

• Team Plan: $299/month for up to 1,000 AI interactions, 3 bots, and integrations with Slack, help centers, and docs.

• Business Plan: $799/month for up to 3,000 interactions, unlimited bots, and unlocks the really powerful stuff like training on past tickets and custom AI Actions.

• Custom Plan: For teams needing more advanced features like multi-agent orchestration and unlimited interactions. You'll have to get in touch with them for this one.

2. Glean

Think of Glean as the heavy-hitter for huge companies. It’s an AI search platform with an impressive list of over 100 connectors, designed to help employees find information buried anywhere in the organization.

If your only goal is to let people find internal documents, Glean is a solid choice. It's great at indexing a massive number of applications and respects all your existing data permissions, so people only see what they're supposed to. That said, its focus is almost entirely on search and Q&A, not the kind of deep, customizable automation that actually takes tasks off your team's plate.

Pros:

• Fantastic at indexing a huge number of enterprise apps.

• It maintains and respects your existing data permissions and security.

Cons:

• There's no self-serve option. You have to go through the classic demo and sales process, which can drag on.

• It’s not really built for task automation (like ticket triage or escalations).

• The pricing isn't public, which is pretty standard for enterprise software but a headache if you're trying to figure out a budget without a long sales cycle.

Pricing:

Glean uses custom pricing and requires you to talk to their sales team. You won't find any pricing details on their website.

3. Perplexity

Perplexity has built a strong reputation as an AI "answer engine," and for good reason. It’s excellent at summarizing information from across the web and shows you exactly where it got its info. If you need to get up to speed on a new topic quickly, it’s one of the best tools around.

I included it here because it's pretty much the gold standard for searching the public web with AI right now. But for a business, its limits are pretty clear. It's an external-facing tool, which means it has no clue about your company's internal operations.

Pros:

• Amazing at summarizing web content with clear, clickable sources.

• The conversational style makes it easy to ask follow-up questions and dig deeper.

Cons:

• It can’t connect to private, internal knowledge like your company's Confluence or Slack.

• It has zero ability to perform actions or integrate with your business workflows.

• Its knowledge is limited to what's publicly available on the internet.

Pricing:

Perplexity has a great free version. The Pro version, which gives you access to more advanced AI models like GPT-4 and Claude 3, is $20 a month.

4. Google AI Mode

Google's AI Mode, with its AI Overviews, puts AI-generated summaries right at the top of the search results. The idea is to give you a quick answer so you don't have to click through ten blue links.

Since it’s Google, this is the AI search most people will run into. It's a decent benchmark for what consumer-grade AI search looks like, but it’s definitely not made for business.

Pros:

• It's built right into the search engine everyone already uses.

• It pulls from Google's absolutely massive and constantly updated index of the web.

Cons:

• It’s not designed for business use and can't touch any of your internal company data.

• There are no customization or workflow automation features.

• Let’s be honest, those AI Overviews have been known to be inaccurate or just plain weird sometimes.

Pricing:

It's free. It’s just part of regular Google Search.

5. ChatGPT Search

The tool that kicked off this whole AI craze, ChatGPT, can now browse the live web. This turns its familiar chat window into a pretty powerful search tool for getting up-to-date information.

Where ChatGPT still shines is in its back-and-forth chat. It's great for brainstorming, asking a string of related questions, and exploring a topic in a more natural way than a typical search engine.

Pros:

• Very conversational and great for brainstorming or asking follow-up questions.

• The interface is fast, familiar, and easy to get the hang of.

Cons:

• Like Perplexity and Google, it has no way of accessing your private company knowledge.

• It doesn't offer any workflow integrations or custom actions for your business tools.

• Even with web access, it can still sometimes just make things up (hallucinate).

Pricing:

Web search is available on ChatGPT's free plan. Paid plans get you more powerful models and higher limits:

• Plus: $20/month for individuals.

• Business: $25/user/month (billed annually) for teams.

• Enterprise: Custom pricing for large companies.

6. You.com

You.com is an AI search engine that tries to stand out by letting you customize things. You can choose which AI models you want to use for your searches and it has a bunch of little productivity apps built-in.

It's a cool idea that gives users more control. But, like the other web-focused tools on this list, it's designed to search the public internet, not your company's private data.

Pros:

• Lets you pick from different LLMs (like models from OpenAI and Anthropic) to run your search.

• Offers a range of little productivity tools that work alongside the search.

Cons:

• Its knowledge is limited to the public web, so it's no use for internal business questions.

• It doesn't have the deep integrations or automation features needed for business workflows.

• The free version has ads.

Pricing:

You.com has a few different tiers:

• Free: Basic access with ads.

• Pro: $20/month for an ad-free experience and access to all AI models.

• Max: $200/month for collaborators and more power.

• Enterprise: Custom pricing for entire organizations.

How to choose the best AI search assistant for your business

So, how do you pick the right tool? It really boils down to one simple question: where does the information you need actually live?

If your main goal is to research competitors, get the lay of the land on market trends, or learn about public topics, a tool built for the web like Perplexity is a great choice. It's fast, it cites its sources, and it's made to summarize the internet.

But if your goal is to cut down on repetitive questions for your support team, get new hires up to speed faster, or automate how tickets are routed, you need an assistant that can securely plug into your internal tools. This is where a solution like eesel AI becomes the obvious choice. It was built from the ground up to turn your company’s private knowledge into an assistant that can actually do work and save your team hours every week. While web search tools find what's out there, eesel AI unlocks what's in here.

It’s time for the best AI search assistant, not just a search engine

The "best AI search assistant" completely depends on what you need it for. For general web questions, tools like Perplexity and ChatGPT are impressive and getting better all the time.

But for businesses trying to solve actual operational headaches, the goal isn't just finding information faster, it's putting that information to work. The real value is in an AI that doesn't just search but assists. One that can handle tasks, fit into your workflows, and speak with your company's voice.

For teams ready to move beyond simple search and into true AI-powered assistance, the choice is pretty clear.

Ready to stop answering the same questions over and over? Get started with eesel AI in minutes and build an AI assistant that actually helps your business run better.