The short version
| If your team... | Start by trying |
|---|---|
| Wants the most familiar, all-round assistant with a big ecosystem of add-ons | ChatGPT |
| Lives in Gmail, Google Docs, Sheets and Drive | Gemini |
| Works with long documents, careful writing or software code | Claude |
| Already pays for Microsoft 365 | Also check Copilot, which is built into your apps |
ChatGPT: the all-rounder
- Strengths: the most widely used assistant, so staff often already know it; broad features across writing, analysis, images and voice; a large ecosystem of custom assistants and integrations.
- Good for: general office work, brainstorming, customer-reply drafts, quick analysis of spreadsheets.
- Watch: pick a business plan for team use so admin controls and data terms fit a company setting.
Gemini: built into Google's world
- Strengths: deep integration with Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive, Meet) and Google Search.
- Good for: teams that already run on Google Workspace, summarising email threads and meetings, research that benefits from search.
- Watch: the benefits are biggest if your files and email are already in Google.
Claude: long documents, writing and code
- Strengths: handles long documents well, produces careful, natural writing, and is widely used for software development.
- Good for: contracts, reports, proposals, policy documents and coding work.
- Watch: compare its add-ons and integrations with what your team needs day to day.
Features and pricing change constantly. Before deciding, check each provider's current business plans, data-use terms and admin controls.
What matters more than the model
- Data terms: on business plans, check that your company data isn't used for training and how long it's kept.
- Admin controls: single sign-on, user management and usage reports.
- Where your work already lives: the assistant that sits inside your daily tools gets used most.
- Clear rules for staff: what may and may not be pasted in (customer personal data, passwords, financials).
Test them on your own work (in one afternoon)
- 1. Pick five real tasks your team does weekly: a customer email, a report summary, a proposal section, a spreadsheet question, a social post.
- 2. Remove anything confidential.
- 3. Give the same task to each assistant with the same instructions.
- 4. Score each answer: accuracy, tone, how much editing it needed.
- 5. Choose the one that needs the least fixing for your work, not the one that wins online benchmarks.
When you need more than a chat window
Chat assistants are great for individuals. When you want AI to work inside your own systems (answering customers on WhatsApp, reading invoices, updating your CRM), you build on these models through their APIs, or on open models. A good build keeps the model swappable, so you can move to whichever provider is best next year. See open-source AI vs ChatGPT and what MCP is.
There's no single best AI assistant, only the best fit for your team's tools and tasks. Test on your own work, choose a business plan with sensible data terms, and set clear rules for staff. When you're ready to put AI to work inside your business, not just in a chat window, we build chatbots, agents and AI features on whichever model fits best.
See our AI automation service.
