Comparisons of AI assistants change every month as new versions come out. The criteria that matter to an SME change very little. Here are the four most common assistants compared on those criteria, followed by a way to decide within a week using your own work.

Start with your documents, not the rankings

The first question is not "which is the best model?" but "where do our emails, documents and calendars live?" An assistant built into your tools gets used; one that forces people to copy and paste gets used less. Quality rankings shift every quarter; your working environment does not.

The four assistants side by side

Microsoft 365 CopilotGemini for Google WorkspaceChatGPT BusinessClaude Team
Where it worksIn Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, on your Microsoft 365 filesIn Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Meet, on your Google filesIn its own workspace, linked to your files through connectorsIn its own workspace, linked to your files through connectors
Look at it first if…your company works in Microsoft 365your company works in Google Workspaceyou want a team workspace independent of your office suiteyou want an independent team workspace, with a lot of writing and long documents
AdministrationThrough Microsoft 365, with your existing access rightsThrough Google WorkspaceChatGPT workspace consoleClaude workspace console
What to checkLicence on top of Microsoft 365; file access rights properly tidied before activationWorkspace plan that includes Gemini; sharing settingsPermitted connectors; Enterprise plan if you have advanced requirementsPermitted connectors; Enterprise plan if you have advanced requirements

If you prefer a European provider, Mistral also offers a team plan. On their business plans, these tools do not use your content to train their models by default; check this in the contract when you buy, along with the prices, which change.

Five criteria that really matter

1. Integration with your tools. Email, calendar, documents, spreadsheets: the less copying and pasting the assistant requires, the more it will be used.

2. Data protection. Data processing agreement, country of processing, retention period, list of sub-processors. For the Swiss framework, see the guide on using AI without putting your data at risk and our analysis of the nFADP, the AI Act and generative AI.

3. Administration. Can you create and remove accounts, decide who has access to what and find out who did what? Without this, the tool remains a collection of individual habits.

4. Full cost. Per-user licences, but also set-up, training and any paid add-ons. See how much AI costs a Swiss SME.

5. Ability to switch. Could you change tools in a year without rebuilding everything? Keep your prompts, templates and examples in your own documents, not only inside the tool.

How to test in one week

  1. Pick three real tasks: a letter, a case summary, preparing a proposal.
  2. Bring together five people who do these tasks every week.
  3. Have them use two tools on the same tasks, with permitted or anonymised documents.
  4. Measure quality, time and the corrections needed, not the general impression.

By the end of the week, the decision is usually obvious. If two tools are equally good, choose the one that fits with your documents.

The free version trap

The free version of an assistant, or a personal account paid for by an employee, belongs to that person, not to the company: no contract, no administration, no way to remove access when they leave. If your staff are already using one with company documents, the first job is to give them a business tool with clear rules.

Going further

AI Adoption Support covers choosing the tool with your IT team, configuring it, setting the rules of use and supporting the team, at a fixed price on quotation or by subscription from CHF 1,800 a month. To compare the tools on your tasks over half a day first, the AI Workshop costs CHF 1,900 excluding VAT. For ChatGPT specifically, the guide Free, Plus, Business or Enterprise explains the plans.