All three are good. The right one for your team depends less on which is "smartest" and more on what you already pay for and what your team mostly does.
We train teams on all three, so we don't have a horse in this race. Here's how we'd choose. (AI tools change quickly; this reflects them as of October 2026.)
The short answer
| If your team… | Start with |
|---|---|
| lives in Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams on Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Copilot |
| writes a lot (proposals, reports, policies) or works with long documents | Claude |
| wants the broadest all-rounder, with images, voice and custom GPTs | ChatGPT |
| has no strong preference | Whichever your most enthusiastic person already uses well |
ChatGPT
Best for: general everyday use, brainstorming, quick research, working with images and data, and building small custom assistants (GPTs) for repeat jobs.
Watch out for: many staff already have personal free accounts. Move them onto a business plan so company data stays out of training and you can manage access.
Claude
Best for: writing that needs to sound human, long documents and contracts, careful analysis, and shared Projects where your team keeps instructions and reference files the AI uses every time.
Watch out for: it's less familiar to most staff, so a short training session pays off quickly.
Microsoft Copilot
Best for: businesses on Microsoft 365. It works inside the apps people already have open: summarising long email threads in Outlook, drafting from your own files in Word, analysing a sheet in Excel, and recapping Teams meetings.
Watch out for: it can only find what your permissions allow, and it finds everything they allow. Tidy up SharePoint sharing before rolling it out, or people may see files they shouldn't.
Comparison by task
| Task | ChatGPT | Claude | Copilot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drafting emails | Good | Very good | Very good, inside Outlook |
| Long documents and contracts | Good | Very good | Good, inside Word |
| Spreadsheets and data | Very good | Good | Good, inside Excel |
| Meeting notes | With uploads | With uploads | Very good, in Teams |
| Images | Very good | Analysis only | Good |
| Shared team setup | Custom GPTs | Projects | Built into Microsoft 365 |
Data privacy: the settings that matter
- Use business plans. The business and enterprise plans of all three don't train on your data by default. Free personal accounts are a different story.
- Turn off chat history sharing where it isn't needed, and set a retention policy.
- Agree what never goes in: customer personal data, unless the tool and your processor agreement cover it.
- Check where data is processed. EU data residency options exist for some plans; ask if it matters for your sector.
Copilot training, ChatGPT training or Claude training?
Whichever tool you pick, the biggest difference comes from teaching people to use it on their own work: how to give context, how to check the answer, and which jobs it's worth using it for. The EU AI Act also now expects businesses to make sure staff using AI have enough AI literacy for the job.
Our AI training courses cover all three tools, by role, in person in Dublin or online.