Out of 29 vendors evaluated in Forrester’s Cognitive Search Platforms Landscape, Simpplr stands alone as the only employee experience platform to make the list of tech vendors offering outstanding search functionality.
Simpplr recognized in Forrester’s Cognitive Search Platforms Landscape, Q2 2025
Simpplr recognized in Forrester’s Cognitive Search Platforms Landscape, Q2 2025
This recognition puts us alongside technology giants like Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Amazon Web Services — companies that have defined search for decades. What makes this moment special isn’t just the company we’re keeping but what it represents for the evolution of the employee experience.
Forrester defines cognitive search platforms as “knowledge and information retrieval platforms that enable the entire search lifecycle: data ingestion and indexing, querying and search, and insights delivery.”
For years, this has been the domain of specialized search vendors serving IT departments. Rather than tack on a separate solution, we built cognitive search natively into our AI-powered employee experience platform. This eliminates the frustration employees feel from having to switch between multiple tools to find information, while leveraging AI intelligence built directly into our platform architecture.
We’re proving that employee experience platforms that embed these powerful capabilities directly into how people work every day offer the best value to organizations looking to streamline their tech stack and unify access to people, information, and resources.
Why cognitive search in EX platforms matters
Being the sole employee experience platform in the Forrester Cognitive Search Platforms Landscape report represents something bigger than a market category placement. It signals a fundamental shift toward where we have aimed our innovation — moving from engagement tools to action-enabling platforms.
From engagement to action
Many EX platforms are built to connect employees to announcements, documents, and conversations. But simply surfacing content isn’t enough to drive outcomes — employees need the right information, at the right time, with the context to act on it. Simpplr’s native cognitive search bridges that gap by combining precise content discovery with actionable insights and recommended next steps.
Intelligence where work happens
For too long, workplace technology has meant jumping between systems, hunting for information, and losing momentum in the process. Search functionality meant to alleviate these issues has fallen far short of worker expectations. We believe employees deserve better. They need a single source of truth — without the need for a separate search solutions provider.
Building blocks for tomorrow
Simpplr’s cognitive search is powered by retrieval-augmented generation and semantic search. It doesn’t stop at delivering precise, context-aware results. It’s also the intelligence engine behind our EX Agent, enabling employees to move from finding information to acting on it instantly. By understanding user intent, organizational context, and employee-specific needs, search becomes the starting point for completing tasks, triggering workflows, and driving outcomes — all without leaving the digital workspace.
How Simpplr’s native cognitive search changes the game
Simpplr’s cognitive search solution delivers three core capabilities that transform how employees interact with information.
Semantic understanding and vector search
Our system doesn’t rely on exact keyword matches. Instead, it understands the meaning behind queries using the same AI technologies that power advanced language models. When someone searches for “remote work guidelines,” the system understands they might need information about hybrid policies, home office setup, or collaboration expectations — even if those exact terms aren’t in their query.
Unified access across repositories
Employees can search across Google Drive, SharePoint, ServiceNow, Confluence, and other connected systems and integrations through a single interface. But unlike federated search that returns siloed sets of results, Simpplr’s cognitive search pulls relevant information from multiple sources and synthesizes it into a single, coherent, and actionable answer.
Permission-aware AI answers
Simpplr’s cognitive search respects and inherits permissions from every connected source so employees only see the information they’re authorized to access. Permission awareness applies to both search results and AI-generated answers, ensuring that sensitive or restricted content is never exposed. By aligning with existing security models, organizations maintain governance and compliance without duplicating or manually managing permissions.
These capabilities give IT peace of mind with governance and compliance built in, without adding administrative overhead. And employees gain faster, more trusted access to the insights they need and can act on them immediately — eliminating the frustration of toggling between tools or piecing together information on their own.
Real impact, real results
The benefits of cognitive search are measurable and immediate: Simpplr’s cognitive search capabilities can cut content search time by up to 40%, giving employees faster access to the information they need to do their jobs effectively. Beyond speed, the technology enhances decision-making by enabling accurate retrieval of policies, procedures, and organizational knowledge through secure, permission-aware AI.
But speed is just the beginning. We’re seeing organizations transform how they operate when search becomes context-aware and agentic. Teams discover insights across all company repositories with precision. Processes get automated by connecting search results to actionable next steps.
The broader industry is seeing substantial returns on cognitive search investments. The Forrester report notes that Siemens estimates it has saved $1.9 million in headcount costs alone from its cognitive search–based platform. And Cisco’s support engineers save 5,000 hours per month with precise, accurate search results. These examples demonstrate what becomes possible when organizations move beyond basic search to truly intelligent information retrieval.
For organizations looking ahead, cognitive search serves as a critical building block for agentic AI applications. Companies can start with built-in AI search capabilities now and scale toward broader agentic AI use cases as the technology matures.
The future of unified digital workplaces
This Forrester recognition comes at a pivotal moment. As enterprises recognize how search sits at the foundation of both generative AI and agentic applications, they’re looking beyond traditional search capabilities toward more intelligent, unified approaches.
Simpplr’s cognitive search integration positions us at the forefront of this evolution. We’re not building search as an afterthought or add-on feature — we’re reimagining how intelligent information retrieval can be woven into the fabric of employee experience. This aligns with our broader mission to eliminate the context-switching that fragments the modern digital workplace.
What this means for organizations
If you’re evaluating employee experience platforms, this recognition should factor into your decision. Simpplr stands apart as the platform delivering cognitive search functionality built in, not bolted on through a separate search provider.
For organizations ready to move beyond basic or federated search toward truly intelligent workplace technology, we’re demonstrating what’s possible when you put employee experience at the center of your search strategy.
This Forrester recognition validates our strategic bet on cognitive search as the foundation for next-generation employee experience platforms. We’re not following market trends. We’re setting them. We’re grateful to our customers and team for helping us reach this milestone, and we’re excited to continue pioneering the next generation of employee experience technology.
Download your free copy of The Forrester Cognitive Search Platforms Landscape, Q2 2025 report to see the full competitive landscape.
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Forrester disclaimer
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here .
