Smart Intranet: one secure place where employees find anything, fast
A smart intranet unifies ServiceNow, SharePoint, your CMS (Sitecore, Optimizely, WordPress and more), Confluence and file shares behind one AI-powered, permission-aware search. Employees find the exact answer they need — and only what they are allowed to see — in seconds.
Explore Sengo's Coveo capabilitiesWhy employees lose hours every week to scattered systems
Knowledge lives in silos no one can search at once
Policies sit in SharePoint, runbooks in Confluence, tickets in ServiceNow, product specs on the public CMS, and the rest on a file share. Employees jump between five tools to answer one question.
Keyword search returns stale, irrelevant results
Your current intranet matches words, not intent. New hires give up after the third result page and ask a colleague — or worse, recreate work that already exists.
Public LLMs do not know your company
Generic AI assistants answer from the open web. They cannot quote your vendor contract, your internal policy, or last quarter's incident retrospective — the answers your employees actually need.
Security blocks every AI search project
Compliance teams kill pilots over fear of exposing confidential documents to employees who should never see them. Without permission-aware indexing, they are right to be cautious.
Every system has its own permission model
SharePoint uses Microsoft Entra groups, ServiceNow uses roles, file shares use AD, your CMS uses something else. Unifying search without breaking access control is the hardest part — and where most integrators get it wrong.
Onboarding is painfully slow
New hires take weeks to learn where everything lives. Internal experts are interrupted constantly. A smart intranet shortens ramp-up from months to days because the answers are already there — findable, sourced, and trusted.
How we build a smart intranet on Coveo
1
Inventory sources, identities and access patterns
We map every system your employees rely on — ServiceNow, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365, Confluence, file shares, Salesforce, and your public CMS (Sitecore, Optimizely, WordPress, Contentful, Storyblok). We document each system's permission model and how identities flow through Microsoft Entra ID. This is the foundation for safe unification.
2
Index everything with permission-aware Coveo connectors
We deploy Coveo connectors to each source and configure early-binding security — permissions are baked into the index, not checked at query time. The result: every search respects the exact same access rights as the source system. Nothing leaks, ever.
3
Add an AI answer layer grounded in your content
On top of the unified index, we layer Coveo's generative answering — retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) constrained to your vetted internal content. Answers cite the source document. Confidential answers stay confidential. Hallucinations drop to near zero because the model only sees what your employees are allowed to see.
4
Roll out to a pilot group with measurable wins
We launch the smart intranet to a focused group — often customer service, HR, or a single business unit. We instrument time-to-answer, deflection rate, and CSAT. Within weeks you have hard numbers to take to the board, not a slide deck.
5
Tune relevance, expand sources, hand over governance
We tune relevance with Coveo's ML models on real query logs, add the next wave of sources, and document the operating model. Your team owns the smart intranet from day one — we stay only as long as you want us there.
What you won't get from us
A generic chatbot that answers from public web knowledge instead of your content
Late-binding security shortcuts that risk leaking confidential documents
Pressure to rip and replace the intranet, ServiceNow or SharePoint you already paid for
Big-bang launches that surprise security, legal or compliance after the fact
Demo-ware connectors that look great in a slide and stall at real enterprise scale
A delivery model that leaves you permanently dependent on us after go-live
What's in your smart intranet package
Source and permission-model audit across ServiceNow, SharePoint, M365, Confluence, file shares and your CMS
Coveo unified search index with early-binding, permission-aware security identities
Connectors for ServiceNow, SharePoint Online, file shares, Confluence and your public CMS (Sitecore, Optimizely, WordPress, Contentful or Storyblok)
Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) layer producing grounded, source-cited answers
Employee-facing smart intranet UI — web, mobile, and in-context inside ServiceNow or SharePoint
Relevance tuning, Coveo ML models, and analytics dashboards your team can read
Security and compliance sign-off package: data-flow diagrams, retention, identity mapping
Team enablement, operational runbooks, and a governance framework you fully own
Success stories
Smart intranet explained
What is a smart intranet?
A smart intranet is a unified, AI-powered workplace search experience that connects every system your employees use — ServiceNow, SharePoint, Confluence, file shares, your public CMS, Salesforce — into a single, permission-aware index. Instead of jumping between tools, employees ask one question and get a sourced answer drawn only from documents they are allowed to see. The engine behind a smart intranet is enterprise search; the most mature platform for this job is Coveo for workplace, which Sengo implements as an official Coveo partner.
Does a smart intranet respect existing document permissions?
Yes — if it is built correctly. Sengo uses early-binding security: every document's access control list is captured at index time and stored alongside the content. When an employee searches, the engine filters results against their identity in Microsoft Entra ID before anything is shown or fed to the AI layer. A user can never retrieve a document they could not open directly in SharePoint, ServiceNow, or the source system. Late-binding shortcuts — checking permissions at query time on the source — are slower and riskier; we do not use them.
Why use Coveo instead of Microsoft 365 Copilot or Glean?
Microsoft 365 Copilot is excellent inside Microsoft 365, but it only sees Microsoft 365 content well; ServiceNow, your CMS, custom apps, and file shares are second-class citizens. Glean is purpose-built for workplace search but lacks the open partner ecosystem and relevance maturity Coveo has built over fifteen years. Coveo gives you a vendor-neutral index across any source, a partner ecosystem you can extend, and a relevance engine that already powers many large public websites — often including yours. Sengo's team includes ex-Coveo engineers, so we can compare honestly: Coveo is usually the right answer for a smart intranet that must span more than Microsoft.
Which systems can the smart intranet connect to?
Out of the box, Coveo ships connectors for ServiceNow, SharePoint Online, Microsoft 365, Confluence, Salesforce, Jira, Box, Google Drive, network file shares and many more. Sengo adds connectors for your public CMS — Sitecore, Optimizely, WordPress, Contentful, Storyblok, Kentico — so the same smart intranet that surfaces a policy can also surface a product page or a knowledge-base article from your customer-facing site.
Do we need to replace our current intranet?
No. A smart intranet sits on top of the systems you already have. ServiceNow keeps owning incidents, SharePoint keeps owning documents, your CMS keeps owning the public site — the smart intranet just makes them findable together through a single, secure search and answer layer. Most projects start with a focused pilot (HR, customer service, or one business unit) and expand source by source. You protect the investments you have already made and avoid a big-bang replatform.
How long does it take to launch a smart intranet?
A focused pilot — three to five core sources, one business unit, permission-aware search plus an AI answer layer — typically goes live in eight to twelve weeks. Enterprise-wide rollout, including additional sources, multi-language support, relevance tuning, and governance handover, usually takes six to nine months. Sengo's approach is to deliver measurable wins inside the first quarter so your CIO has hard numbers to present at the next board cycle. If you want help shaping a realistic roadmap, contact our team.
Turn your intranet into the smartest tool your employees use
A smart intranet starts with the systems you already own and the engine that may already power your public website — Coveo. Let's map the path, scope a pilot, and put real numbers on what a secure, AI-powered workplace search would change for your business.
