Is Microsoft Copilot enough for my business, or do I need custom AI agents?

What does Copilot actually do?

Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant for Microsoft 365. It works inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.

It draws on your email, calendar, meetings and SharePoint and OneDrive files. It only shows each person what they're allowed to see, so Microsoft recommends reviewing your sharing permissions before you roll it out.

It's a per-user license on top of your Microsoft 365 subscription. The small-business plan, Copilot Business, covers up to 300 users on an annual commitment. Microsoft publishes its pricing on its website.

Microsoft says your prompts, its responses and the Microsoft 365 data it reads aren't used to train its models. For European customers, Copilot runs inside Microsoft's EU Data Boundary.

What about Copilot Studio?

Microsoft offers Copilot Studio so you can build your own agents with little code. You describe the agent, connect your sources, then publish it to Teams or Copilot.

Then someone has to pick the task and the sources, write the instructions, test, and keep the agent current as your files change. That job falls to your team or to a contractor.

What does a Saména agent add?

Our engineers build your agents with you, on your documents in SharePoint, OneDrive or Dropbox. Your files stay where they are. Saména reads them, read-only, in the folders you pick.

Saména links every document to the others by client, project, method and team, using the words your business uses. You don't have to sort anything.

Each agent owns one task. It drafts a proposal from similar past projects, finds who worked on a project, or builds a presentation. It cites the documents behind every piece of information and hands you a Word file or a PowerPoint deck.

Saména is billed for your whole company, with unlimited users.

Do you have to pick one?

No, they work together. Your agents live in the Saména app, and your teams can also reach them from Copilot, Claude or ChatGPT.

An employee keeps using Copilot for email and meetings. When it's time to write a proposal, they call on the Saména agent from that same tool.

In Copilot, your admin decides which agents are allowed across the company.

When is Copilot enough?

In a few cases, Copilot can handle the job on its own:

• Your teams mostly want help with daily work: summing up an email thread, prepping for a meeting, writing a first draft in Word.
• Your whole company already runs on Microsoft 365, with tidy folders and up-to-date permissions.
• Someone on your team has time to build and maintain agents in Copilot Studio.

How do you decide?

Five questions to ask yourself:

• Where do your documents live? Copilot reads Microsoft 365. Saména reads SharePoint, OneDrive and Dropbox.
• How many people will use it? Copilot is priced per user. A Saména subscription covers the whole company.
• Which task do you want to hand off? If you can name it (a proposal, an RFP response, meeting notes), an agent can be built for it.
• Who builds the agents? Your team in Copilot Studio, or our engineers working with you.
• Where does your data go? Saména is a French company: servers in France, database in the European Union. You also choose the model, without being tied to one provider: Claude, models from OpenAI or Mistral, served in Europe with no retention of your data.

Where should you start?

Keep Copilot and add one agent for a task that eats up your time. You can start with a single department and expand whenever you want.

Frequently asked

Does Saména replace Copilot?

No. Your Saména agents live in the Saména app and also answer inside Copilot. Your teams keep the tool they know.

Is there an alternative to Copilot for a small business?

Yes: other AI assistants on a business plan, or agents built on your own documents, like Saména's. If you're already on Microsoft 365, Saména can also work alongside Copilot.

Are our documents used to train the AI?

Not with Saména: the model you choose (Claude, models from OpenAI or Mistral) runs in Europe and retains none of your data. Microsoft also says Copilot doesn't train its models on your Microsoft 365 data.

How does Saména pricing compare to Copilot?

Copilot is a per-user license. Saména has 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.