Insight Engine vs. Enterprise Search: 7 Key Differences in 2024

Employees lose 30% of their time while looking for information manually; This time can be used for other tasks for higher priority. To eliminate such manual processes,  efficient organizations adopt tools that rapidly increase the delivery of relevant data and insights. 

Recent trends in search tools show that organizations will switch to insight engines from enterprise search engines over the next few years. ¹This trend poses a concern to organizations that do not know the difference between insight engines and enterprise search engine platforms.

To help business leaders fill the knowledge gap, we’ll briefly answer the following questions: 

• What are these tools?
• How do they differ from one another? 
• Which one best fits your business?

What is an insight engine?

An insight engine, cognitive search, or enterprise knowledge discovery and management is a specific enterprise search software to gather, analyze, and interpret data (structured or unstructured) from various sources. 

 How does an insight engine work?

Insight engines combine advanced analytics, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning algorithms to identify patterns, relationships, and trends within the data. By generating insights and actionable intelligence, insight engines can improve decision-making, optimize business processes, and enhance customer experience.

Insight engines can be applicable for different industries, business functions and purposes, such as: 

• Finance
• Healthcare
• Retail
• Manufacturing
• Customer service
• Supply chain management
• Fraud detection
• Risk management

Explore more on the insight engine use cases, case studies, and benefits by reading our complete guide.  

What is an enterprise search?

Enterprise search is a system to retrieve information from various sources, such as databases, documents, emails, and other types of content, in a single search query.

 How does an enterprise search work?

Enterprise search enables accessing relevant information in different systems and repositories quickly and easily. Enterprise search systems apply indexing, context awareness and processing to understand the content and deliver the most relevant information. 

Enterprise search can help:

• Increase productivity
• Improve knowledge management
• Enable data-driven decision-making
• Reduce the cost and time required for manually searching for information. 

Discover how enterprise search works, its use cases, case studies and benefits through our comprehensive article. 

What are the differences between insight engine and enterprise search?

Insight engines and enterprise search systems are applied to search for and gather information from different sources. Yet, both tools are different in terms of: 

Purpose

• Insight engines deliver insights and actionable intelligence based on the data searched. 
• The enterprise search system targets providing users with quick and easy access to relevant information.

Data Types

• Insight engines are designed to work with both structured and unstructured data from all kinds of sources. 
• Enterprise search engines mainly utilize unstructured data such as documents, emails and web pages. 

Data synthesis 

• Insight engines deploy AI and data sourcing to retrieve information and optimize search results. 
• Enterprise search engines typically do not focus on synthesizing the data but rather on filtering and matching it with the entered query. 

Feature Functions 

• Insight engines have richer indexes, complex queries, multiple touchpoints and other advanced features, such as natural language processing, semantic search, and machine learning algorithms, to generate insights and provide recommendations. 
• Enterprise search systems may have some of these features. However, they are typically focused on improving the relevance of search results.

Contextualization 

• Insight engines can contextualize data to provide more relevant and reliable insights by integrating semantics and metadata. Consequently, they offer more data-driven analytics and strategy development. 
• Enterprise search engines can contextualize data to return matching results with the entered query. 

Personalization

• Insight engines personalize results to deliver recommendations by analyzing users’ past, and predicting their intent. 
• Enterprise search engines that do not employ ML algorithms may not offer the flexibility required for personalization. 

User Experience

• Insight engines are often designed for specific user roles, such as data analysts or business users, and provide a more sophisticated user experience. 
• Enterprise search systems are designed to be more user-friendly and accessible to a broader range of users.

Which one to choose: insight engine vs. enterprise search?

In 2023, 35% of employees worldwide are expected to leverage insight engines to find accurate information from diverse sources. ²  However, choosing between an insight engine and an enterprise search system depends on the specific needs and goals of the organization

Choose an insight engine to:

• Gain deeper insights from the data 
• Identify patterns, trends, and relationships 
• Handle data variety, volume, and velocity.

Choose an enterprise search system to:

•  Improve the accessibility and relevance of the data 
• Enable all team members to benefit from the tool 
• Quick and easy access to information from different sources

Further reading

Learn more on search engines and knowledge management by reading:

• Top 10 Knowledge Management Tools: in-Depth Guide
• Knowledge Management: in-Depth Guide

Compare insight engines through our data-driven and comprehensive list of tools.

External Links

• 1. “Time to replace enterprise search engines with insight engines.” ExpertAI. 2018. Revisited March 27, 2023.
• 2. Patenall, Helen (2022). “How did intelligent search evolve from enterprise search? New opportunity and foresight unlocked by smart insight engines.” AIIMI. Revisited March 27, 2023.