Which AI for your business? The options in 2026, and how to choose

General-purpose assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Mistral Le Chat): what are they good enough for?

They write, summarize, translate and answer general questions. For an email, a memo or a first draft, they're often all you need.

Each has a business plan: ChatGPT Business, Claude Team, Le Chat Enterprise. On these plans, the vendor states it doesn't train its models on your data by default.

Connectors, turned on by an admin, link them to SharePoint or Google Drive. The assistant then searches the files each employee is already allowed to open.

They are tools made for everyone: nobody has defined with you the task to do, or how your company does it.

• Strengths: ready on day one, very good at writing and summarizing, a business plan from every vendor.
• Limits: without a connector, they don't know your files; with one, they find files without knowing your methods.
• Data: Le Chat is made by Mistral AI, a French company. For the others, hosting depends on the plan: check with the vendor.

Office suites with AI (Microsoft 365 Copilot, Google Workspace with Gemini): what do they add?

Microsoft 365 Copilot works inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. It draws on your emails, meetings and SharePoint and OneDrive files, with each employee's access rights.

It's a paid per-user add-on to Microsoft 365. Microsoft has a Copilot Business plan designed for smaller companies.

Gemini does the same job in Google Workspace: Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet. Google includes it in its Business and Enterprise plans and states it does not train its models on customer data.

For a company already on one of these suites, it's often the easiest first step. The tool sees everything each person is allowed to see: review sharing rights before you roll it out.

For European customers, Microsoft places Copilot within its EU Data Boundary. Possible exceptions are worth checking with Microsoft.

• Strengths: built into everyday software, nothing new to learn, existing access rights respected.
• Limits: an assistant for each person, with no business task built in; relevance depends on how your folders are organized.

Enterprise search platforms (Glean, Dust, for example): who are they for?

They connect many tools (email, files, CRM, project management) and add search and agents on top.

Glean is an AI-powered enterprise search engine that respects the access rights of each connected app. It mostly targets large organizations, and its prices aren't published.

Dust, a French company founded in 2022, lets your teams build their own agents, connected to Slack, Notion or Google Drive. Hosting on each plan is worth checking with the vendor.

You need someone in-house to build the agents, choose the sources and keep them running.

• Strengths: many connectors, one search across all your tools, a lot of freedom to build agents.
• Limits: internal time to set up and maintain; some are aimed mainly at large enterprises.

Agents built on your documents (Saména among them): when should you choose them?

Here, engineers build agents for you, each dedicated to one task, like drafting a proposal or preparing meeting notes.

Saména reads your documents in SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox. It turns them into your company's memory, organized by client, project, method and team. You don't have to sort anything.

Our engineers look with you at what takes time, build your agents and fine-tune them with you. Answers cite their sources; deliverables come out in Word or PowerPoint.

Servers are in France, the database in the European Union. Each company has its own encryption key, and no copy of your files is kept. The models come from Mistral AI, under a no-training contract.

It's the right choice when the answer depends on your track record and nobody in-house has time to build these agents. For writing and summarizing, a general-purpose assistant is enough.

• Strengths: agents made for your tasks, answers sourced from your documents, the whole company covered by one subscription.
• Limits: a setup phase with our engineers before the first agents; supported sources today are SharePoint, OneDrive and Dropbox.

Five questions to ask before you choose

Ask them of every vendor, and of yourself:

• Where are our documents? Not every tool reads every source.
• Who needs to use it? Three people or the whole company: with per-user pricing, the math changes fast.
• Which specific task? "Saving time" isn't enough. Name it: a proposal, a response to a tender, meeting notes.
• Where does the data go? The country of the servers, the models that read your documents, what the contract says about training.
• Who builds it and who maintains it? A ready-made tool, a platform you configure, or agents built by a provider.

What if you combined them?

That's often the simplest path. Your agents work in the Saména app, and also from Claude, ChatGPT or Copilot.

Your teams keep the tool they know, and your agents take over when the answer depends on your documents. You can start with one department and one first agent.

Frequently asked

What is the best AI for a small business?

There isn't a single one. For writing and summarizing, a general-purpose assistant on a business plan is enough. For a task that depends on your documents, you need a tool connected to them and built for that task.

Is there an alternative to Copilot for a small business?

Yes: Gemini in Google Workspace, the business plans of ChatGPT, Claude or Le Chat, or agents built on your documents. Saména can also work alongside Copilot: your agents live in the Saména app and also answer inside Copilot.

Is there a European AI for businesses?

Yes. Mistral AI, a French company, makes Le Chat. Saména runs on Mistral models, with servers in France and a database in the European Union.

How much does Saména cost?

A one-time setup fee based on your document volume, then a monthly subscription for the whole company, with unlimited users. We share pricing during the demo.