Who this is for: heads of AI, data or risk at regulated firms choosing the layer that connects their documents, data and permissions to AI agents. Skip it if you need a vertical tool for one workflow (legal drafting, support tickets); those are different products.
In short: Every vendor now calls this an "enterprise brain". What they actually sell is memory, meaning and governance: a context layer. For a regulated firm the deciding questions are whether permissions follow the user, whether you can reconstruct what an agent saw and did, and whether you can leave.
Key points
- Rankings weight governance and permissions 30%, evidence of real use 25%, auditability 25% and portability 20%.
- Glean ranks first on evidence of real use, including $300 million ARR announced in May 2026.
- Microsoft Work IQ became generally available on 16 June 2026 but independent reporting shows shallow Copilot usage.
- Google's Gemini Enterprise launch on 8 October has the most complete memory design but no independent evaluation yet.
- Ask any vendor for an agent's full trace, a documented export, and last week's active-user share.
How we ranked
| Criterion | Weight | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Governance and permissions | 30% | Over-permissioning, not the model, is the largest real exposure in deployed copilots. |
| Evidence of real use | 25% | Weekly use and revenue, not seats sold or agents registered. |
| Auditability | 25% | Supervisors now expect the full chain of automated activity to be reconstructable. |
| Portability | 20% | Whether your context and decision history survive a change of vendor. |
The list
1. Glean
- Best for: firms running more than one productivity suite, or that want a context layer independent of their suite vendor.
- Why it ranks first: the strongest evidence of real use among independents: $300 million ARR announced in May 2026, more than 85% of customers using it across five or more departments, and a 45% weekly-to-monthly active ratio. It connects to 250+ systems and now ships an MCP gateway and model hub, so it sits across vendors rather than inside one.
- Watch out for: its claim that its context beats raw MCP tool access comes from a vendor-run evaluation. Its reported $7.2 billion valuation was not confirmed from a primary source.
- What would change its rank: the suite vendors' native layers matching it on cross-system coverage at no extra cost.
2. Microsoft Work IQ (with Agent 365)
- Best for: firms standardised on Microsoft 365.
- Why it ranks here: generally available since 16 June 2026, permission-aware, billed on usage and exposed through MCP and A2A. Agent 365 is the most developed agent registry, with nearly 40 million agents registered within two months of launch.
- Watch out for: usage depth. Independent reporting puts paid Copilot penetration under 4.5% of the Microsoft 365 base, with 20–30% of payers using it weekly. Copilot inherits every over-shared SharePoint permission, and a June 2026 security review of Microsoft's agent identity model found blueprint-level permissions that child agents inherit invisibly.
- What would change its rank: independent evidence of weekly use rising, or the identity issues being fixed and re-reviewed.
3. Google Gemini Enterprise (the October 2026 Gemini agent)
- Best for: firms on Google Workspace, or those wanting the most complete memory design.
- Why it ranks here: the 8 October launch maps most closely to how memory research describes the problem: four memory types, a catalogue of business definitions so every agent uses "net margin" the same way, an agent gateway as a policy firewall, and coworker agents with their own accounts. Google says nearly 90% of the Fortune 100 use Gemini Enterprise.
- Watch out for: it is weeks old. An independent analyst noted that many announcements arrived without availability dates or pricing, and no independent evaluation exists yet.
- What would change its rank: published pricing and the first independent production reviews.
4. Writer (Enterprise Brain)
- Best for: marketing, brand and content-heavy teams that want governed AI with a single vendor.
- Why it ranks here: the first mainstream product sold under the "Enterprise Brain" name, launched 9 September 2026, described as a governed context layer capturing brand knowledge, decision logic and live business data, with a new team-level agent memory layer. Enterprise Brain itself is in early access.
- Watch out for: scale. The last revenue estimate we found was about $47 million ARR in November 2024 (Sacra), and the product is new.
- What would change its rank: customer evidence outside content and marketing workflows.
5. Dust
- Best for: mid-sized firms wanting shared, multiplayer agents quickly.
- Why it ranks here: strong reported engagement: 3,000+ organisations, 300,000+ agents, 70% weekly active use and zero churn in 2025, behind a $40 million Series B in May 2026 led by Abstract and Sequoia.
- Watch out for: fewer of the governance and audit features a large regulated firm will need, and every figure is self-reported.
- What would change its rank: a large regulated reference customer.
Left out, and why
- Palantir. Its ontology is the oldest working version of this layer and its US commercial revenue grew 149% year on year in Q2 2026, but it is a platform-plus-engineers engagement, not a product you choose from a list.
- Amazon Q Business. Closed to new customers in 2026; AWS now points to Amazon Quick.
- Memory-only vendors. See List #1.
Three questions to ask any vendor
- Show us an agent's full trace for one task: what it retrieved, under whose permissions, and what a human changed.
- Export our definitions, decisions and history in a documented format, and show it reading back without your product.
- What share of your customers' users were active last week?
Common questions
What is the best enterprise context platform for a regulated firm?
The article ranks Glean first, followed by Microsoft Work IQ with Agent 365, Google Gemini Enterprise, Writer's Enterprise Brain and Dust.
What should regulated firms look for in an enterprise AI context layer?
Whether permissions follow the user, whether you can reconstruct what an agent saw and did, and whether you can leave with your context and decision history.
Why was Palantir left off the enterprise context platform list?
Its ontology is the oldest working version of this layer, but it is a platform-plus-engineers engagement, not a product you choose from a list.
What questions should I ask an enterprise AI vendor?
Ask to see an agent's full trace for one task, to export your definitions, decisions and history in a documented format that reads back without their product, and what share of users were active last week.
Disclosure: lowob has no commercial relationship with any vendor on this list. Facts checked 17 Oct 2026.