One search across several offices

The question

A company with three sites has documents in three places: contracts at head office, quotes at the branch, safety papers at the warehouse. Looking for one file means knowing which office to ask. We wanted to see whether a single question could search all three, quickly, and without moving anything.

How we set it up

Each office keeps its files exactly where they are. A private link connects every office to one private AI, which builds a searchable index and answers questions in plain language. Access rules decide who may see which results.

What we measured

We compared how long it takes to find a document when you know the right office, with how long it takes when you search all of them at once.

Sample data The bars show the layout only. Real measurements will replace them before publication.

What we learned

• Permissions matter most. Search is only useful if people trust that it never shows them, or others, files they should not see.
• Folder names are a rich signal. The folder a file lives in helps the search understand what it is about.
• Speed depends on the link. The connection between offices affects results more than we expected.

What comes next

We are testing with larger folders and with more mixed file types, and looking at how the search behaves when a site is temporarily offline. We will update this page as results come in.