Start from where you work: if you live in Outlook, Word and Excel, Microsoft 365 Copilot is the first to look at; if in Google Workspace, Gemini. Claude is the strongest on long documents and on assistants built on your own materials. They often coexist: one inside the everyday windows, one for the thinking work. The choice takes a week, on three real jobs.
Guide in preparation: here you'll find the short answer, the outline and the answers to the most common questions. The full text follows in the coming weeks.
Where do you start from: Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace?
The simplest rule: the useful tool is the one that sits inside the windows already open. A table of the two worlds.
What each one does well, on real jobs
Copilot in email and files; Claude on long documents, analysis and assistants; Gemini in Workspace and on video. One example each, no rankings.
When it pays to use two
The typical case: Copilot for everyone, Claude for those who write and analyse. Licence costs as factors, not figures.
What happens to your data
Business versions and free versions; what never goes in anyway; the link to the one-page policy.
How to choose in a week
Three real jobs, two tools, five days: the test that decides. With the table to fill in.
Frequently asked questions
We already have Microsoft 365: is Copilot the way to go?
Almost always yes as a first step, because it sits inside Outlook, Word and Excel where the work happens. It's worth checking which licences you have and who would actually use them: licences bought and never opened are the most common AI expense in small companies.
Does our data stay ours?
With the business versions of the tools your data isn't used to train the models and stays in your own space. With the free versions it isn't. Either way, contracts, personal data and health data don't go in: the one-page policy says so.
Can they be used together?
Yes, and it's often the best solution: one tool inside the everyday applications, one for long documents and assistants. What matters is that the rule is written down: who uses what, for which job.