Choosing an AI Provider

ChatGPT may be the best-known name, but there are several excellent AI choices, and the best one depends on the job, the tools you already use and how sensitive your data is. Many businesses end up using more than one.

AI BUSINESS SOLUTIONS is independent - we recommend whatever fits your business best, not a particular brand.

Quick guide:
  • Already on Microsoft 365? Start by looking at Copilot.
  • Already on Google Workspace? Start with Gemini.
  • Lots of writing, reports and long documents? Try Claude.
  • Want the widest range of features including images and voice? ChatGPT.
  • Highly sensitive data? Consider a private model, or a UK-hosted cloud option.

OpenAI - ChatGPT and GPT models

Strengths

  • The best-known AI assistant - most staff have already tried it
  • Very broad range: text, images (gpt-image), voice agents, transcription, video
  • Custom GPTs for sharing ready-made assistants across your team
  • Huge choice of third-party tools and integrations

Worth considering

Model line-up changes frequently (older models are retired regularly), so custom tools need maintaining.

Best for

General-purpose business assistant, marketing content, image creation, voice and customer-facing chat.

Anthropic - Claude

Strengths

  • Excellent, natural writing and careful reasoning
  • Handles very long documents and reports well
  • Strong at AI agents, coding and working with business tools (Anthropic created MCP, the standard for connecting AI to software)
  • Projects let you give Claude your own documents and instructions

Worth considering

No built-in image generation. Fewer consumer-style extras than ChatGPT.

Best for

Reports, proposals and policies, document analysis, customer emails in your tone of voice, AI agents.

Google - Gemini

Strengths

  • Built into Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive and Meet
  • Very competitive API prices, especially the Flash models
  • Strong with images, video and very large amounts of content
  • NotebookLM is excellent for researching your own documents

Worth considering

Best value if you already use Google Workspace.

Best for

Google Workspace businesses, high-volume low-cost automation, working with video and images.

Microsoft - Copilot

Strengths

  • Works inside Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Teams
  • Can use your emails, files and meetings (respecting existing permissions)
  • Meeting summaries and actions in Teams
  • Fits existing Microsoft 365 security and compliance settings

Worth considering

Only as good as how tidy your SharePoint/OneDrive permissions are - it can surface files people shouldn't see if sharing is too open.

Best for

Microsoft 365 businesses wanting AI in the tools staff already use every day.

Private / open-weight models

Strengths

  • Llama, Mistral, Gemma, gpt-oss, Qwen and others run on your own hardware
  • Data never leaves your premises
  • No per-use charges once set up
  • Can be tailored to specialist tasks

Worth considering

Up-front hardware cost, ongoing maintenance, and not as capable as the leading cloud models for complex work.

Best for

Very sensitive data (legal, medical, HR, finance), strict client contracts, high-volume simple tasks.

Things that matter more than the brand

  • Your data - which plan you use matters more than which provider. See Sensitive Data and AI.
  • Cost at your volume - prices differ by 20 times or more between models. See The Cost of AI.
  • Not getting locked in - models improve and get retired every few months. We build tools so the AI model underneath can be switched without starting again.
  • Where your data is processed - UK and EU hosting is available from all the major providers, directly or via Microsoft, Amazon or Google cloud.

Other names you may hear

  • Perplexity - AI search engine with sources, good for research.
  • Mistral - a French AI company offering both cloud and open models, popular for EU data residency.
  • DeepSeek and Qwen - capable open models from China. Fine to run privately on your own hardware, but we don't recommend their hosted services for business data.
  • Meta AI / Llama - Meta's assistant and open models; Llama is widely used for private AI.
  • xAI Grok - the AI built into X (Twitter).

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