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Which AI tool fits a small office

Eight tools a 10 to 40 person office actually meets. Each card says what it is good at, when to leave it, what it costs to start, and where the vendor says the data goes. The three questions at the top run in the browser on fixed rules, written from the cards. Nothing on this page calls a model.

Last updated

Three questions

Answer them in order. The pick shows up when the last one is set.

What should it do?
How sensitive is the data?
What can you spend?

The pick

Answer the three questions and a pick shows up here.

The eight tools

All eight cards stay on the page. A filter only hides some.

What free, low and mid mean

Free means a plan at $0. Low means a published paid plan under $25 a person a month. Mid means $25 to $100. A plan above that is written out and not badged mid. These bands only compare the eight tools. The vendor’s own page is the price you pay. Figures are US dollars unless a euro page is named, and they exclude tax unless the vendor says otherwise.

Show tools for
Price band

Showing 8 of 8.

  • ChatGPT

    • Free
    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Everyday writing, a first pass on email, and a document you can upload.
    Use it when
    The office wants one shared place for drafts, and a person still sends the mail.
    Leave it when
    The file has to stay in the EU. The Business pricing page does not list EU data residency. A separate help article says Business residency is still rolling out, and that abuse-monitoring copies stay in the US.
    Price
    Free plan. Plus is $20 a month and includes Codex. Business is $20 a person a month on the yearly plan, or $25 if you pay monthly, from two seats. Pro starts at $100 a month. The Go plan exists; its price is not printed here.
    Data and EU
    On Free, Plus and Pro, training is on until you turn off Improve the model for everyone. New chats after that are not used for training. Business and Enterprise are not used for training by default. Enterprise can store content at rest in Europe, and eligible customers can opt into inference in Europe.

  • Claude

    • Free
    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Long documents and spreadsheets you hand over as files. Paid plans add Claude Code.
    Use it when
    Someone needs to work through a pile of files, or a team of up to 150 wants a shared project.
    Leave it when
    The data has to stay in the EU. Anthropic stores data in the US and may route traffic to the US, Europe, Asia or Australia. Only a custom build on Amazon Bedrock or Google Cloud can run Claude in the EU.
    Price
    Free. Pro is $20 a month, or $17 a month if you pay $200 for the year. A Team standard seat is $20 a person a month billed annually, or $25 monthly. Max starts at $100 a month. Enterprise is $20 a seat a month plus usage, billed annually.
    Data and EU
    The pricing page lists model training as opt-out on Free, Pro and Max. On Team and Enterprise, Anthropic does not train on inputs and outputs by default. Commercial data is stored in the US.

  • Microsoft 365 Copilot

    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Drafts and summaries inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.
    Use it when
    The office already pays for Microsoft 365 and the work sits in those apps.
    Leave it when
    You need a code editor. Also skip it for an EU-only promise if the tenant uses Multi-Geo: those tenants do not get the flex routing switch, so ask Microsoft where Copilot runs the model for them.
    Price
    On the US page, Copilot Business is $18 a person a month for the first year (otherwise $21), paid yearly, and only as an add-on to an eligible Business plan, through 31 December 2026. Business Standard with Copilot is $23.50. Business Premium with Copilot is $32. Enterprise is $30. The Ireland page, excluding VAT, lists the add-on at €15.60 for the first year (otherwise €18.20), Standard with Copilot at €20.36, and Premium with Copilot at €27.73. A Danish checkout can differ.
    Data and EU
    An EU or EFTA Microsoft 365 tenant without Multi-Geo is in scope for the EU Data Boundary. Data at rest stays inside that boundary. Flex routing, on by default for tenants created since 25 March 2026, lets model inference run outside it at peak times. Turning it off keeps inference inside. Microsoft does not offer that switch to tenants with Multi-Geo, so the EU-only route here is not open to them. Web searches sent to Bing, and Anthropic models if an admin turns them on, are outside the boundary. The enterprise pricing page lists Enterprise Data Protection on Copilot Chat and on the paid Copilot plan.

  • Gemini

    • Free
    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Mail, Docs and Sheets, and Deep Research when one search is not enough.
    Use it when
    The office already works in Gmail, Docs and Sheets.
    Leave it when
    You paste customer files into the consumer Gemini app with activity left on. Google can use those chats to train its models unless Keep Activity is off or the chat is temporary.
    Price
    Free with a Google account. Google AI Plus is $4.99 a month. Pro is $19.99. Ultra starts at $99.99 a month, and the 20x tier is $199.99, which is above the mid band on this page. Gemini Enterprise Business starts at $21 a seat a month, without data regions. Google sells the Standard and Plus editions through its sales team.
    Data and EU
    On Workspace and Gemini Enterprise, Google says it does not use that customer data to train models without permission. On Business editions, data regions only set where data is stored. Processing Gemini prompts in Europe as well takes Workspace Enterprise Plus with Enterprise data regions, or Gemini Enterprise Standard or Plus, all sold through Google’s sales team. The consumer Gemini app is a different setting.

  • Perplexity

    • Free
    • Low
    Good at
    Research questions where the sources sit next to the answer.
    Use it when
    Someone is checking a supplier, a market or a rule and needs links they can open.
    Leave it when
    The job is changing software, or the material is a customer file. This page has no EU storage promise for Perplexity.
    Price
    A free plan exists. On the Pro page, Pro is $17 a month when billed annually, and Max is $167 a month when billed annually. Max sits above the mid band here. An Enterprise seat price is not printed. The help center and the enterprise pricing page did not show the same figure.
    Data and EU
    Perplexity says Enterprise data is not used to train its models, and that its agreements stop third-party model providers from training on it. The enterprise pricing page lists GDPR among the standards it meets and does not say the content is stored in the EU. The privacy notice, which covers the consumer plans, says data may be stored and processed outside your country, including in the US, under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. On Free, Pro and Max, opt out if you do not want activity used to improve the models.

  • Cursor

    • Free
    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Changing a codebase, in an editor, with an agent that edits files.
    Use it when
    One person, or a small team, changes software and can read the changes before they are saved.
    Leave it when
    The code has to stay in the EU. Enterprise data residency today is US-only, and Cursor describes EU residency as still in development.
    Price
    Hobby is free, with limited agent requests. Individual Pro is $20 a month. Teams is $40 a person a month. Pro+ and Ultra are on the page without a price in the text, so those figures are not here. Enterprise is custom. Prices exclude tax.
    Data and EU
    Privacy Mode means Cursor and its model providers do not train on your code. You turn it on in settings, or a team admin enforces it. Cloud Agents store an encrypted copy of the repo while they run. Leave them off if the repo cannot be stored.

  • Codex

    • Free
    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    Coding tasks in ChatGPT, in an editor extension, and in the terminal, including jobs that keep going in the cloud.
    Use it when
    The office already has ChatGPT, and the person who codes wants the agent in the repo.
    Leave it when
    The code has to stay in the EU. Codex follows the ChatGPT plan it sits on, and that plan’s residency rules are the ones on the ChatGPT card.
    Price
    Included with ChatGPT. Plus is $20 a month. Pro starts at $100. Business is $20 a person a month on the yearly plan, for two or more seats. The free ChatGPT plan includes limited Codex access.
    Data and EU
    On a personal ChatGPT plan, Improve the model for everyone also covers Codex tasks until you turn it off. Business and Enterprise workspaces are not used for training by default.

  • Grok Bot

    • Low
    • Mid
    Good at
    A recurring task you can show it once. It has a computer of its own, signs into the tools you allow, and can rerun the routine on a schedule.
    Use it when
    The same weekly job is worth handing off, and a person still approves anything that gets sent.
    Leave it when
    Customer data that has to stay in the EU. xAI’s pricing page mentions data residency only as something a custom plan can discuss, and it does not name the EU.
    Price
    SuperGrok is $30 a month and includes Grok Bot. SuperGrok Plus is $100 a month. The free Grok plan on the same page does not list Grok Bot. Cursor’s Individual plan at $20 a month, and Teams at $40, also list Grok Bot access.
    Data and EU
    xAI says the Grok Bot computer is encrypted in transit and at rest, with a training opt-out, and that sensitive actions can wait for review. Training stays on until you opt out.

Questions

Where does a 10-person office start?

One ChatGPT Business workspace for writing, at $20 a person a month on the yearly plan, and Cursor only for the person who changes software. If the office already lives in Microsoft 365, read the Copilot card before adding a second chat tool. If the data has to stay in the EU, start with Copilot on an eligible EU or EFTA tenant, with flex routing off. The three questions above apply your own answers on top of that.

What if the data has to stay in the EU?

GDPR does not require data to stay in the EU. It requires a lawful basis for any transfer out of it, and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework is one today, though an appeal against it is pending at the EU Court of Justice. When a contract or a customer says the data must stay in the EU, that means stored and processed here: data the vendor processes in the US is a transfer, even if it is stored in Europe. On this page, only Microsoft 365 Copilot does both on a plan a small office can buy itself, on an eligible EU or EFTA tenant that is not on Multi-Geo, with flex routing off. Flex routing is on by default for tenants created since 25 March 2026, and web searches still go to Bing, outside the boundary. Gemini Enterprise Standard or Plus, Workspace Enterprise Plus and ChatGPT Enterprise can keep data in the EU too, through each vendor’s sales team. ChatGPT Business, Claude, Cursor, Grok Bot and Perplexity publish no EU processing, and Codex follows its ChatGPT plan. All eight vendors here are US companies, and US authorities can require them to hand over data even when it is stored in the EU. This is a guide, not legal advice.

Do these tools train on what we paste in?

It depends on the plan, and the card says which. Personal plans for ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and Grok Bot, can use what you send for training unless you opt out, or, for the consumer Gemini app, turn activity off. ChatGPT Business, Claude Team and Enterprise, Google Workspace, Perplexity Enterprise, and Cursor with Privacy Mode on, are the setups the vendors describe as not used for training by default, or not used once that switch is on.

What do free, low and mid mean?

Free is a plan at $0. Low is a published plan under $25 a person a month. Mid is $25 to $100. Anything above that is written in the price note and not badged. The bands exist so eight price lists can sit next to each other. The vendor’s own page is the price you pay.

Is this the assessment?

This page compares eight tools, checked on 9 and 10 October 2026. The assessment is a working session on the jobs your office actually runs. The link below goes there.

Not sure? The assessment maps which tools fit your actual work.

Sources

Prices, plan limits and data notes on this page come from the vendor pages below, read on 9 October 2026. The EU and Grok Bot notes were checked again on 10 October 2026. If a page and this guide disagree, the vendor page wins, and this guide is out of date. None of the links here earn a commission. Krohn AI Advisory sells the assessment linked above.

Spotted something out of date? Write to contact@mikekrohn.ai.