{"id":1843,"date":"2026-08-11T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2026-09-08T21:22:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T19:22:35","slug":"ai-assistants-compared-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/08\/11\/ai-assistants-compared-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot: the comparison for mid-sized business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Short answer:<\/strong> Four tools are genuinely worth considering for mid-sized businesses: Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft 365 Copilot and Google Gemini. Most of the decision is already made before you start comparing: if you&#8217;re deep in Microsoft 365, you end up with Copilot; if you use Google Workspace, you end up with Gemini; if you want the best text tool independent of either, it&#8217;s Claude or ChatGPT. This piece places the four and tells you which deep-dive comparison to read next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>As of: August 2026. Prices and features in this market change fast; all figures were checked on the providers&#8217; own sites on the day of publication.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Disclosure:<\/strong> I make my living from consulting and training around Claude. That&#8217;s exactly why, for each of the other three tools, you&#8217;ll find the cases where it&#8217;s the better choice, stated explicitly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The key points<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Four tools, not twelve:<\/strong> everything else is either too niche or too unstable for a mid-sized business.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Your existing office software is the strongest argument<\/strong>: it decides more often than any feature list.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prices sit closer together than they look:<\/strong> between \u20ac6.80 and \u20ac26 per person per month, depending on what&#8217;s already in your license.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Copilot and Gemini are add-ons<\/strong> to office software you&#8217;re already paying for. Claude and ChatGPT are standalone tools.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No vendor trains on your content<\/strong> by default on business plans. On the personal plans of Claude and ChatGPT, they do.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How I compare<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I judge AI tools by seven criteria drawn from consulting practice rather than benchmark scores: real workload, context connectivity, data protection and contract terms, team rollout, total cost over twelve months, exit cost, and pace of development. The reasoning is in <a href=\"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/07\/30\/how-i-evaluate-ai-tools\/\">my evaluation framework<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why only four candidates? Because the market has dozens of tools, but only these four offer the combination a business actually needs: a business plan with reasonable data protection commitments, central user management, a company behind it that will still exist next year, and smooth day-to-day operation in German without friction. Everything else is either a specialist tool or a gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The four at a glance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><thead><tr><th><\/th><th>Claude<\/th><th>ChatGPT<\/th><th>M365 Copilot<\/th><th>Google Gemini<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody>\n<tr><td>Business plan<\/td><td>Team, $20\/seat billed yearly<\/td><td>Business, \u20ac21\/user billed yearly<\/td><td>from \u20ac15.60 promo, regularly \u20ac18.20<\/td><td>included in Workspace from \u20ac6.80<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Prerequisite<\/td><td>none<\/td><td>none<\/td><td>Microsoft 365 Business license<\/td><td>Google Workspace license<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Minimum seats<\/td><td>2 seats<\/td><td>2 users<\/td><td>\u2014<\/td><td>Starter\u2013Plus max. 300 users<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Training on content<\/td><td>no (business plan)<\/td><td>no (business plan)<\/td><td>no<\/td><td>no<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Strength<\/td><td>long documents, exact instructions, code<\/td><td>ecosystem, image, voice<\/td><td>integration into Office<\/td><td>integration into Workspace<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td>Weakness<\/td><td>fewer image\/voice features<\/td><td>results vary more<\/td><td>value depends on clean data<\/td><td>extra features cost more<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two notes on comparability. First: Anthropic quotes in US dollars, the other three in euros; I don&#8217;t convert, because exchange rates and taxes would create a false sense of precision. Second: with Microsoft, the price shown is a <em>surcharge<\/em>. Without a base license, there&#8217;s no Copilot, so the total price is higher. With Google it&#8217;s the reverse: the basic Gemini features are already included in the Workspace plan you&#8217;re paying for anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The decision tree<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In practice, this path gets you there faster than any feature table:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Do you mainly work in Outlook, Teams and Excel?<\/strong> Then check Microsoft 365 Copilot first, and read the <a href=\"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/08\/18\/microsoft-copilot-or-claude\/\">Copilot vs. Claude comparison<\/a> before you sign.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do you mainly work in Gmail, Docs and Drive?<\/strong> Then Gemini is the obvious path. Details in the <a href=\"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/08\/25\/gemini-or-claude-workspace\/\">Workspace comparison<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Neither, or the office-software argument doesn&#8217;t apply to you?<\/strong> Then it&#8217;s Claude versus ChatGPT, covered in depth in the <a href=\"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/08\/04\/claude-vs-chatgpt-for-business\/\">main comparison<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>You don&#8217;t know what your people actually need?<\/strong> Then the tool question isn&#8217;t up yet. Spend two weeks tracking what tasks actually come up.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Point 4 sounds trivial, but it&#8217;s the most common reason rollouts fail. Tools bought for an unclear problem stop being opened after six weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Claude<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What it is:<\/strong> a standalone AI assistant from Anthropic, independent of your office software. The Team business plan costs $20 per seat per month billed yearly, from two seats. For EU customers, according to the vendor, the contracting entity is Anthropic Ireland Limited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Strong at:<\/strong> long documents, exact instructions and anything that gets checked afterward. If you work through contracts, tenders or expert reports and need to turn them into something precise, that&#8217;s the clear use case. On top of that there&#8217;s the ability to connect your own line-of-business applications via the Model Context Protocol, the path by which a chat window becomes a tool that knows your systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Weak at:<\/strong> image generation and voice features. If you need imagery regularly, you won&#8217;t be happy here, and shouldn&#8217;t talk yourself into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A fit for:<\/strong> law firms, tax advisors, engineering offices, consultancies, software development, anywhere text precision matters more than multimedia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What it is:<\/strong> the best-known assistant, also independent of your office software. The Business plan costs \u20ac21 per user per month billed yearly, from two users; monthly billing costs \u20ac26.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Strong at:<\/strong> breadth. Image generation, voice mode, a large range of connectors. Microsoft 365, Google Drive, Slack, GitHub, Linear, Figma are included in the Business plan. But the most important practical advantage is a different one: many of your employees already know the tool from personal use. That cuts rollout time substantially, and at the same time brings the shadow use that would otherwise remain your biggest data protection risk into a controlled setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Weak at:<\/strong> reliability on the details. In my practice, results vary more, especially with strict formatting requirements. For tasks that get checked afterward, that means more rework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A fit for:<\/strong> agencies, marketing, sales, retail, anywhere speed and versatility matter and staff already work with it anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Microsoft 365 Copilot<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What it is:<\/strong> not a standalone tool, but an AI layer over Microsoft 365. Copilot Business currently costs \u20ac15.60 per user per month as a promotional price with an annual commitment; that price applies only to contracts signed by <strong>September 30, 2026<\/strong>, after that it&#8217;s \u20ac18.20. Monthly billing costs \u20ac21.84. It requires a Microsoft 365 Business license; alternatively there are bundles such as Business Standard with Copilot for \u20ac20.36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Strong at:<\/strong> integration. The assistant sits where your people already work, in email, in meetings, in the spreadsheet. Under Enterprise Data Protection, Microsoft commits that prompts and responses stay within the Microsoft 365 service boundary and aren&#8217;t used to train the language models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Weak at:<\/strong> anything that depends on data quality. Copilot is only as good as your filing. If files sit unstructured in SharePoint and permissions have grown organically over the years, the assistant either delivers little or, more uncomfortably, surfaces things certain people shouldn&#8217;t see. A clean-up project before rollout is the rule, not the exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A fit for:<\/strong> businesses running fully on Microsoft 365, with well-maintained filing, whose work genuinely happens in Outlook, Teams and Excel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Google Gemini<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>What it is:<\/strong> the AI layer over Google Workspace. Unlike with Microsoft, basic features are already included in the Workspace plans: Starter costs \u20ac6.80, Standard \u20ac13.60, Plus \u20ac21.10 per user per month billed yearly. Gemini in Gmail is available from Starter; broader access in Gmail, Docs and Meet from Standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Strong at:<\/strong> value for money for existing Workspace customers. If you&#8217;re already paying for Standard, you get usable AI features with no additional license, an argument no other vendor can make in quite the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Weak at:<\/strong> cost transparency at the upper end. The advanced features (more automations, image and video generation, real-time voice translation) run through the paid add-on &#8220;Gemini AI Expanded Access,&#8221; whose price isn&#8217;t listed on the pricing page. If you&#8217;re planning around it, you have to ask. Starter through Plus are also capped at 300 users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A fit for:<\/strong> businesses on Google Workspace who want solid everyday AI support and don&#8217;t need a specialist solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What all four have in common<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the business plans, none of the four vendors trains on your content by default. That&#8217;s the good news, and it shifts the real question. Because on the <em>personal plans<\/em> of Claude and ChatGPT, training happens by default, with an opt-out. So your data protection risk doesn&#8217;t sit in the vendor choice, it sits in the personal accounts your people use on the side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The differences in detail, retention periods, data residency, subprocessors and the question of who your actual contracting party is, I cover in the <a href=\"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/2026\/09\/08\/ai-gdpr-vendor-comparison\/\">GDPR comparison<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What you need to settle regardless of the tool<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>A one-page policy:<\/strong> what&#8217;s allowed in, what isn&#8217;t, which access is permitted.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Business accounts for everyone who needs one<\/strong>: otherwise the work migrates to personal accounts.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A named point of contact<\/strong> for questions from staff.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Tidy filing and permissions<\/strong>, especially before a Copilot rollout.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A place for what works:<\/strong> good templates belong in your own archive, not in a chat history.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why are Perplexity, Mistral, DeepSeek and others missing?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Because this comparison addresses businesses looking for a tool for their staff, not tech enthusiasts. The vendors named are often very good in their niche, but they don&#8217;t offer the combination of business plan, user management, contract terms and staying power that a business needs. For special cases they can still be the right choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Isn&#8217;t Gemini the cheapest option if we already pay for Workspace?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the basic features, yes, and that&#8217;s a fair argument. But check first whether your actual use cases are covered by the included scope, or whether you&#8217;ll end up needing the paid add-on. Then the math shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Can we start with one tool and switch later?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes, and that&#8217;s usually the better path than months of evaluating. Just keep everything you build yourselves, policies, templates and processed company knowledge, in your own archive in plain text formats. Then switching costs days, not weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do we even need a business plan if we only write harmless text?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Experience says: what starts out harmless ends up, three weeks later, involving customer names and draft contracts. If you&#8217;re using the tool for business, plan for the business plan from day one; switching afterward is more unpleasant than it sounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What about businesses with fewer than five people?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Same logic, less effort. Claude Team and ChatGPT Business are available from two seats; with Copilot and Gemini it depends on your existing license. The decision tree above still applies unchanged. You just don&#8217;t need weeks to work through it.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Four AI assistants for businesses compared, with prices, a decision tree, and how your existing office software makes the choice for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1986,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-automatisierung"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3366,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/3366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pletzenauer.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}