Choosing an AI tool is where many businesses make their first expensive mistake. Here is how to match ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Microsoft Copilot to the work your team actually does.
Step 1 of our six-step guide to AI implementation is choosing the right tool. It sounds simple. In practice, it is where many businesses make their first expensive mistake: buying licences for the tool everyone is talking about, then discovering it does not fit how the team actually works.
This article sets out how to make the choice, and what each of the main business AI tools is typically good at.
Start with the task, not the tool
Before comparing products, write down the three to five jobs you want AI to help with. Be specific. "Use AI more" is not a job. "Draft first replies to customer enquiries using our price list" is.
Then ask five questions of each job:
- What does it need to do? Write, summarise, analyse numbers, read images, search documents?
- How good does the output need to be? A rough internal draft, or something a client will read?
- How much information does it handle at once? A short email, or a 200-page tender pack?
- Where does the information live? Outlook and SharePoint, Google Drive, a CRM, paper files?
- Who will use it, and how often? Two directors occasionally, or 40 staff every day?
The answers usually point to a tool quickly. The fourth question matters most, because the best AI tool is often the one already sitting next to your data.
The main options for UK businesses
Every vendor ships updates constantly, so treat this as a guide to fit rather than a league table, and check current features before you buy.
Microsoft 365 Copilot
If your business runs on Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and SharePoint, Copilot's big advantage is that it can already reach your work, within your existing permissions. It can summarise a Teams meeting, draft a reply from an email thread or pull figures from a spreadsheet without anyone copying and pasting.
Best for: Microsoft-based businesses that want AI inside the tools staff already use.
Watch for: Results depend heavily on how tidy your SharePoint and permissions are. Messy files produce messy answers, and loose permissions can surface documents to people who should not see them.
Google Gemini for Workspace
The equivalent for Google Workspace businesses. Gemini works inside Gmail, Docs, Sheets and Meet, and draws on your Drive.
Best for: Businesses already on Google Workspace.
Watch for: As with Copilot, the quality of your Drive organisation shapes the quality of the output.
ChatGPT for business
The best-known AI assistant, with a broad feature set including custom assistants, file analysis, image generation and connectors to common business apps.
Best for: General-purpose use across a team, especially where staff already use it personally and are comfortable with it.
Watch for: Make sure the business is on a business plan, rather than staff using personal accounts. We explain why in our AI and GDPR guide.
Claude for teams
Claude is known for strong long-form writing, careful handling of long documents, and Projects that let a team keep shared context for each client or department.
Best for: Writing-heavy and document-heavy work: proposals, reports, policies, contracts and research.
Watch for: Like any standalone tool, it needs connecting to your systems to reach its full value. We run Claude for Teams rollouts for exactly this reason.
Do you need more than one?
Often, yes, and that is fine. A common pattern is:
- One everyday assistant for the whole team, usually the one that fits your office suite.
- One specialist tool for a particular job, such as a website assistant trained on your content, or a writing tool for the bid team.
What causes problems is uncontrolled sprawl: five people on five different free tools, each holding pieces of client data, with nobody sure who pays for what.
Mistakes we see most often
- Choosing on price per seat alone. The cheapest licence nobody uses is the most expensive option.
- Rolling out to everyone at once. Start with a small group who have clear use cases, then expand.
- Skipping training. Most of the value comes from staff knowing what to ask. An hour of practical training per team changes adoption dramatically.
- Ignoring where data lives. If client files sit in SharePoint, a tool that cannot see SharePoint will always feel second best.
A simple way to decide
Run a four-week trial with a small group, two tools at most, and the same three real tasks. Measure the time saved and ask the users which they would keep. That beats any comparison chart, including this one.
How we can help
Our AI Ops Audit includes a tool recommendation based on your systems, your data and the jobs you actually need doing. We are not tied to any vendor, so the recommendation is based purely on fit.
Next in the series: how much does AI cost a business, and how do you keep it predictable?