Glean vs Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?)
In the contest of Glean vs Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?), which AI Search Engine tool is the champion? We evaluate pricing, alternatives, upvotes, features, reviews, and more.
If you had to choose between Glean and Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?), which one would you go for?
When we examine Glean and Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?), both of which are AI-enabled search engine tools, what unique characteristics do we discover? The upvote count shows a clear preference for Glean. Glean has attracted 7 upvotes from aitools.fyi users, and Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?) has attracted 6 upvotes.
Think we got it wrong? Cast your vote and show us who's boss!
Glean

What is Glean?
Glean connects your company's apps, documents, and permissions into one enterprise search and Work AI platform. Employees ask questions in natural language, get answers grounded in Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Confluence, Salesforce, and hundreds of other sources, then automate follow-up work with assistants and agents. The system respects existing access controls so people only see what they are already allowed to view.
Generic AI chat tools send broad prompts to models without your org chart, ticket history, or doc permissions baked in. Glean indexes enterprise context once, maps relationships in an Enterprise Graph, and claims a 30% reduction in token usage compared with off-the-shelf MCP tools because less irrelevant text reaches the model. That matters when every department is spinning up agents on the same data.
IT, engineering, sales, support, and HR teams at companies like Booking.com, Zillow, and Samsung use Glean to find answers faster, build no-code agents, and cut internal support tickets. Deployment is demo-led: you request access through Glean's sales flow rather than self-serve signup.
Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?)

What is Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?)?
Book Detective is an AI book search engine that finds titles from vague plot memories, character details, or mood descriptions you type in chat. It started as an experimental tool called What is that Book on Joelbooks and now runs as a custom GPT in the OpenAI GPT Store with a curated dataset of 10,000+ titles beyond ChatGPT's training cutoff.
Keyword book finders choke on fuzzy prompts like "fantasy with dragons and a clever heroine." Book Detective combines GPT-4 with Joelbooks' editorial dataset of fresh fiction and nonfiction excerpts, updated weekly with upcoming releases ChatGPT alone cannot see. The trade-off is that it lives inside ChatGPT rather than as a standalone website, so you need a ChatGPT account to use the current version.
Readers who forgot a title but remember scenes use Book Detective to match fragmented descriptions against both the LLM and Joelbooks' quality-filtered catalog. Authors can submit books directly to the dataset. The original whatbook URL on Joelbooks now 404s; Book Detective is the documented successor as of May 2024.
Glean Upvotes
Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?) Upvotes
Glean Top Features
275+ out-of-the-box connectors sync Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Confluence, GitHub, and Salesforce
Supports 35+ unique LLMs with flexible model choice across the platform
Glean claims 110 hours saved per user per year and 20% fewer internal support tickets
Permission-aware search inherits source-app access rules so users only see allowed content
SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance badges listed on the homepage
Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?) Top Features
Searches books from natural-language descriptions like plot twists, characters, or moods
Combines GPT-4 with a Joelbooks dataset of 10,000+ curated fiction and nonfiction titles
Database updated weekly with fresh and upcoming releases outside ChatGPT's knowledge cutoff
Available as Book Detective in the official OpenAI GPT Store since May 2024
Authors can submit books directly to the searchable AI dataset
Outperformed BookAbout and Findyournextbook in Joelbooks' early comparison tests
Glean Category
- Search Engine
Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?) Category
- Search Engine
Glean Pricing Type
- Paid
Book Detective (formerly What is that Books?) Pricing Type
- Free
