Amazon Kendra is a machine-learning-powered enterprise search service for websites and applications. It answers questions phrased in natural language, matches curated FAQs and can extract answers from HTML tables. Its Retriever API provides semantically relevant passages for retrieval-augmented generation, with access-control and metadata filtering plus relevance tuning. Native connectors include Amazon S3, Microsoft SharePoint, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Google Drive and Confluence, alongside custom and partner connectors. Experience Builder lets users create and launch search applications without coding or machine-learning experience. It can integrate with AWS IAM Identity Center and supports Azure AD and Okta for single sign-on. Search analytics cover search quality, usability, user interaction and content gaps, with data available through an API. Document enrichment can add metadata, convert scanned documents to text, classify files, extract entities and transform content. Kendra encrypts data in transit and at rest and supports AWS KMS key options. Access is through the AWS console, CLI or SDKs; campaign components must be created in the same AWS Region. A connector-ingested document can be no larger than 50 MB.
Who it is for
It suits organizations seeking search for websites or applications, including teams in the listed domains such as IT, financial services, healthcare and legal. Experience Builder is aimed at users who want to create a search application without coding or machine-learning experience.
What is good
- Answers natural-language questions and matches curated FAQs.
- Native connectors include S3, SharePoint, Salesforce and Google Drive.
- Experience Builder supports no-code search application creation.
- Document enrichment can convert scanned documents to text.
- Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
What to know first
- There is no free plan; a 30-day trial is listed.
- A connector-ingested document is limited to 50 MB.
- Campaign components must be created in the same AWS Region.
- GenAI Enterprise Edition indexes are available only in four listed regions.
Verdict
Amazon Kendra combines natural-language search, connectors, analytics and document enrichment for enterprise content. Consider the regional availability, document-size limit and same-Region requirement when planning a deployment.
Amazon Kendra plans and pricing
All plansCompared on AI enterprise search software
- Free plan
- No
- Source connectors
- 5
- Permission sync
- Yes
- Answer citations
- Yes
- Deployment options
- cloud
- Indexed content limit
- 3 GB
- Admin controls
- Yes
