AIVM Brain vs Tana
A tool that builds a self-structuring knowledge graph, vs the layer that makes it permission-aware, provable, and agent-queryable.
Tana is an AI-first workspace whose supertags and graph self-structure from your meetings and chats, turning messy input into a queryable knowledge graph. AIVM Brain is the governance-and-proof layer that makes a company's knowledge permission-aware, provable, and queryable by AI agents: per-person retrieval, a content-blind tamper-evident audit, and MCP. Tana builds the graph; Brain governs who can see it and proves who did, across the whole company.
At a glance
| AIVM Brain | Tana | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A governance-and-proof layer over company knowledge | An AI workspace that self-structures a knowledge graph from your input |
| Structuring | Bi-temporal knowledge graph, with permissions and proof on top | Supertags and a graph that self-structure from meetings and chats, a real strength |
| Permissions | Permission-aware (RBAC/ABAC) plus field-level redaction | Workspace sharing; not per-person governed retrieval with proof |
| Agents (MCP) | Agents query via MCP, governed like people, with limits, human-in-the-loop, and a kill switch | AI-native capture and structuring inside the workspace |
| Audit and proof | Content-blind, tamper-evident log, independently verifiable, plus an optional on-chain anchor | Not a content-blind, independently verifiable access chain |
| Sources | Slack, GitHub, Drive, Notion, Box, Confluence, Salesforce, Telegram, with permissions intact | Meetings, chats, and what you capture into Tana |
| Model and data | Bring your own model key; nothing you connect trains a model | Runs on Tana's platform |
| Getting started | One command: npx @aivm/brain init, free to start | A Tana account |
Why teams compare them
Tana is a strong, genuinely novel product for structuring knowledge automatically. The comparison comes up when that structured knowledge has to be governed across a company, shared with AI agents, and proven, which is a different job from building the graph in the first place. The right answer depends on whether you mainly need the graph built for you, or the company-wide governance and proof on top of it.
Build the graph, or govern and prove it
Tana is impressive at the thing it does: take meetings, chats, and notes and self-structure them into a typed, queryable graph with supertags, almost as a by-product of working. That structuring is a genuine strength. Brain is not trying to build that graph for you; it is the layer that makes a company's knowledge permission-aware, queryable by agents, and provable. The two are complementary: Tana can structure the knowledge, and Brain can govern who is allowed to see it and prove who did.
What governance and proof add on top
A self-structuring graph answers how this knowledge is organized. Brain answers a different set of questions a company has to face once that knowledge is shared: who is permitted to see each part, with permission-aware retrieval and field-level redaction, can AI agents query it safely, through an MCP endpoint governed like people with limits, human-in-the-loop, and a kill switch, and can we prove every access, with a content-blind, tamper-evident audit you can verify yourself, optionally anchored on-chain. Brain is built around those guarantees.
Where Tana is the better fit
If you want a tool that turns your meetings and chats into structured, queryable knowledge with as little manual organizing as possible, Tana is a strong and original product, and Brain does not replace that capture-and-structure experience. Brain is the better fit when that knowledge has to be governed per person, queried by agents, and provable across the company.
Who each is best for
Questions, answered
Is AIVM Brain a Tana alternative?
They solve different halves. Tana self-structures your meetings and chats into a knowledge graph; Brain is the governance-and-proof layer that makes a company's knowledge permission-aware, agent-queryable, and provable. Many teams could structure in one and govern through the other.
Does Brain build a knowledge graph like Tana?
Brain has a bi-temporal knowledge graph for as-of queries, but its focus is governance and proof on top of company knowledge, not Tana's self-structuring capture from meetings and chats, which is Tana's core strength.
Can AI agents query the knowledge with Brain?
Yes. Brain exposes an MCP endpoint so agents read company knowledge under the same governance as people, with limits, human-in-the-loop, and a kill switch, and every access is recorded in a content-blind, verifiable audit.