# NOAN vs Company Brain: approved facts for AI agents

Company Brain (company-brain.ai) and NOAN both put your company's own approved facts in front of AI tools over MCP, with a person approving each fact and every version kept. Pick Company Brain to turn your documents and tools into fact proposals for your team to review and brief AI assistants from them, and NOAN when you also need permissions by area of your facts, a REST API and webhooks for your own agents, apps and website, and your facts as they stood on any past date.

Competitor claims last verified 1 November 2026. Web page: https://www.getnoan.com/compare/noan-vs-company-brain

## Side by side

| Dimension | NOAN | Company Brain |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Purpose | Holds your company's own approved facts, like prices, policies and product details, so every agent reads the current version | A governed knowledge base that connects to AI tools over MCP, holding facts, entities, business rules and a glossary |
| Source of truth | One current fact per block, written and verified by your team. A new version supersedes the last | Approved facts, each with a category, statement, evidence and confidence score. AI extraction, Brain Agents and teammates turn documents and connected tools into proposals |
| Who verifies | A named person on your team. Facts an agent writes can wait for a person to verify them before anything reads them | A Validator or higher approves or rejects each proposal in a review queue. High-confidence proposals with no conflicts can be approved automatically if you turn that on |
| Versioning and history | Every version kept, with who verified it and when. Time Travel shows your facts as they stood on any past date | Approved facts are immutable and edits create new versions. Each fact carries an effective date range |
| Permissions | Roles and fact permissions decide who sees and edits each area. Each API key is scoped further: read or write per resource, a list of allowed stacks, and fact changes held for approval | Six workspace roles set what each member can read, write and approve. A shared company key gives teammates read access over MCP |
| How agents access it | Remote MCP server (OAuth or an API key), REST API with an OpenAPI spec, and an open Agent Skill. Plain JSON from any language, no SDK needed | An MCP server with a personal API key, with setup steps for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Copilot, Devin, Cline and other MCP clients |
| Where it fits | The fact layer under your agents, apps and site, read over MCP or REST | Standing company context for AI assistant sessions, including knowledge packs for sales, product, support and more |

## When to choose Company Brain

- You want AI to draft fact proposals from your documents and connected tools for your team to review
- Your team mostly uses AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and Cursor rather than building its own agents
- You want business rules and a glossary kept alongside your facts
- Roles across the whole workspace are enough, without permissions by area

## When to choose NOAN

- You build your own agents, apps or website on your facts and want a REST API with an OpenAPI spec as well as MCP
- Different people and keys should see different areas of your facts
- You want to see your whole fact base as it stood on any past date
- Your systems should react the moment a fact changes, through webhooks

## The same idea, built for different reach

Company Brain and NOAN agree on the core idea: AI tools should read your company's own facts, a person should approve each one before it goes live, and an edit should create a new version rather than overwrite the old one. That is the discipline this whole category needs.

Where they differ is how far the facts travel. Company Brain is built to brief AI assistant sessions over MCP, and it is good at drafting fact proposals from the documents and tools you already have. NOAN is built as a fact layer that assistants, your own agents, internal apps and your website all read, over MCP or a REST API, with permissions by area, webhooks when a fact changes, and Time Travel across every version.

## Using them together

Most teams will pick one source of truth for their facts rather than run two side by side, since two places to approve the same price is how drift starts. If you already brief assistants from Company Brain and want your own agents or site on verified facts, a reasonable split is assistant briefing there and customer-facing facts in NOAN, with each fact owned in exactly one place.

## Common questions

### What is a company brain for AI?

A shared store of your company's own knowledge that AI tools read, so they answer with your facts instead of guesses. Company Brain at company-brain.ai is one product built around that name. NOAN is a fact layer in the same space, with verified, versioned facts served over MCP and REST.

### Is NOAN an alternative to Company Brain?

Yes. Both have a person approve facts before they go live, keep every version, and connect over MCP. NOAN adds a REST API with an OpenAPI spec, permissions by area of your facts and per API key, webhooks when a fact changes, and Time Travel to see your facts on any past date.

### How do I give my AI agent verified facts about my company?

Keep your company's own facts in one place where a person verifies each one, then connect your agents to it. With NOAN, that is the remote MCP server at https://mcp.getnoan.com/mcp or the REST API at https://api.getnoan.com/v1.

## Connect your agent to verified facts

- MCP: https://mcp.getnoan.com/mcp. Sign in over OAuth or send a NOAN API key. Install steps for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and Codex: https://www.getnoan.com/mcp
- REST: https://api.getnoan.com/v1 with a bearer key. OpenAPI spec: https://api.getnoan.com/openapi.json
- Or tell any agent: "Read https://www.getnoan.com/setup.md and follow it."

## Sources

- [Company Brain](https://www.company-brain.ai/)
- [Company Brain docs](https://www.company-brain.ai/docs)
- [Company Brain llms.txt](https://www.company-brain.ai/llms.txt)
- [NOAN API spec](https://api.getnoan.com/openapi.json)

## Related comparisons

- [Agent memory vs verified facts](https://www.getnoan.com/compare/memory-vs-facts.md)
- [NOAN vs Notion AI](https://www.getnoan.com/compare/noan-vs-notion.md)
- [NOAN vs building your own RAG](https://www.getnoan.com/compare/noan-vs-diy-rag.md)
