Glean vs Dust: Which AI Work Platform to Pick in 2026?
Both index your company’s tools and put an AI layer on top, but they lead with different jobs. Glean is a search-first enterprise “Work AI” platform — it crawls 100+ company apps into a permissions-aware knowledge graph and delivers a polished answer-and-search experience, with agents built on top. Dust is an agent-building-first platform with retrieval underneath — you assemble custom AI agents on your data, and it openly markets against Glean on price and openness. If you mainly need a finished search layer across everything, Glean. If you want to build custom agents with transparent, per-user pricing, Dust.
The One-Sentence Answer
Pick Glean if you want a polished, enterprise-grade search-and-answer layer across all your apps; pick Dust if you want to build custom AI agents on your data with transparent per-user pricing and no seat minimum.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Glean | Dust | |
|---|---|---|
| Core strength | Search-first Work AI | Agent-building platform |
| Positioning | Enterprise knowledge graph | Custom agents on your data |
| Search layer | Polished, permissions-aware | Retrieval underneath agents |
| Pricing model | Enterprise, not public | Transparent ~$29/user/mo |
| Seat minimum | Reported ~100-seat minimum | No seat minimum |
| Best-known-for | Company-wide search | Building AI agents fast |
| Buyer | Large enterprise IT | Teams and mid-market |
| Best for | Finding answers across apps | Shipping agents that act |
When to Use Glean
- You want a single, polished search box that answers across 100+ company apps
- Permissions-aware results that respect each source’s access controls matter
- You’re a large enterprise with the budget and seat count for enterprise pricing
- Company-wide knowledge discovery is the primary job, with agents as a bonus
Think of Glean as the enterprise search layer that makes everything findable first, then adds agents.
When to Use Dust
- You want to build custom AI agents on your own data, not just search it
- Transparent, published pricing (~$29/user/mo) beats a quote-based negotiation for you
- You don’t have (or don’t want to commit) ~100 seats to get started
- Smaller teams or mid-market orgs that want to ship agents quickly, not run a rollout
Polished Search Layer vs Agent-Building With Open Pricing
The axis that actually decides it is whether you’re buying a finished search experience or a toolkit to build agents. Glean invests heavily in the search layer itself: a permissions-aware knowledge graph, hybrid keyword-plus-vector retrieval, and a refined answer experience that large enterprises can roll out company-wide. That polish comes with enterprise pricing that isn’t published and a reported seat minimum around 100, so it fits big organizations more than small teams. Dust flips the emphasis. Retrieval is there, but the product is oriented around building custom agents on your data, and it competes openly on a transparent ~$29-per-user price with no seat minimum. Teams that mainly need everyone to find things lean Glean; teams that want to build agents that do things and see the price up front lean Dust.
Rule of thumb: buy the polished company-wide search layer → Glean; build custom agents with open per-user pricing and no minimum → Dust.
If the real goal is getting the work done rather than choosing a platform to configure, neither tool does the work for you. Carly is an AI executive assistant you email or text — it schedules meetings, handles email, and runs tasks on your behalf. It also automates multi-step workflows across 200+ integrations. See our best AI personal assistants and, if you’re weighing the wider field, our Glean alternatives roundup.
Quick Reference
| Your situation… | Pick… |
|---|---|
| Want a polished search box across all apps | Glean |
| Building custom AI agents on your data | Dust |
| Large enterprise with 100+ seats | Glean |
| Small team, no seat minimum needed | Dust |
| Permissions-aware company-wide answers | Glean |
| Want transparent per-user pricing up front | Dust |
Related guides: Glean alternatives · Dust alternatives · Best AI personal assistants
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