I tested the 7 best AI agents for small business to find the top pick for 2025

I’ve spent a ton of time digging into AI tools, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that the hype can be overwhelming. For small businesses, the situation is tough: you need to compete with bigger players, but you don’t have their massive budgets. AI agents are often pitched as the solution, a way to get "instant scale" without emptying your bank account.

But let’s be real, not all AI agents are created equal. Some are just fancy chatbots, while others need a whole dev team to get up and running. So, I decided to roll up my sleeves and actually test the most promising options out there. My goal was simple: find the best AI agents for small businesses that actually do what they say they will. I focused on tools that are easy to use, make a real difference in daily work, and connect with the software you already have. Here's what I found.

What are AI agents and why should small businesses care?

Before we jump in, let’s get one thing straight. An AI agent isn't just a basic automation tool or a chatbot spitting out pre-written responses. It’s software that can autonomously make decisions, take multi-step actions, and adapt as it goes, all without you micromanaging it.

It’s the difference between a tool that tells you a customer asked about their order and an agent that actually finds the order status, drafts a reply, updates the ticket in your help desk with a "shipping-inquiry" tag, and pings your fulfillment channel in Slack. One gives you information; the other gets work done. This infographic breaks down the key differences.

For a small business, that’s a pretty big deal. It’s like having a team of incredibly fast, detail-oriented assistants who never need to sleep. One analysis notes that AI agents can give startups "instant scale," helping you focus on growth instead of getting swamped by busywork.

Our criteria for picking the best AI agents

To keep this review practical, I tested each platform against criteria that matter to a team with limited resources. I wasn't interested in flashy demos; I was looking for tools that deliver real value.

Here's what I focused on:

1. Ease of Use: How quickly can someone without a technical background get this up and running? I gave extra points to no-code or low-code platforms.

2. Practical Impact: Does it solve actual, everyday problems? I looked for tools that could handle the messy reality of customer support, lead management, and administrative tasks.

3. Integration Ecosystem: Does it play nicely with the tools you already use? An agent that can’t connect to your help desk, CRM, or e-commerce platform is just creating another headache.

4. Transparent Pricing: Is the cost clear and predictable? I steered clear of platforms with confusing credit systems or pricing that penalizes you for growing.

5. Control and Reliability: Can you trust it to do its job? I looked for tools that give you precise control over the agent's behavior and let you test things safely.

The best AI agents for small business in 2025: A quick comparison

Here’s a quick look at how the top contenders measure up.

Tool	Best For	Pricing Starts At	No-Code Friendly?	Key Integrations
eesel AI	Customer support & internal knowledge	$799/month (Business Plan for AI Agent)	Yes	Zendesk, Slack
Lindy	All-in-one sales & operations	$49.99/month	Yes	Salesforce, Slack
Relevance AI	Agents powered by internal data	$19/month (billed annually)	Low-code	Custom APIs, CRMs
Make	Visual workflow automation	$10.59/month	Yes	2,000+ Apps
Zapier	Simple, prompt-based tasks	$19.99/month (billed annually)	Yes	7,000+ Apps
Tidio	Conversational customer service	Free plan available ($32.50/mo for Lyro AI add-on)	Yes	Shopify, WordPress
Intuit Assist	Financial management	Included with QuickBooks	Yes	QuickBooks

The 7 best AI agents for small business

After putting these tools to the test, a few clear winners stood out for different kinds of small businesses. Here’s the breakdown.

1. eesel AI

eesel AI is built to connect directly with the tools you already have, like Zendesk or Intercom, and learn from your scattered knowledge sources, think Google Docs, Confluence, past tickets, and your help center. Its AI Agent is designed to automate frontline support by drafting replies, tagging and closing tickets, and even taking custom actions. At the same time, its AI Internal Chat acts as an instant answer bot for your team in Slack or Microsoft Teams.

• Pros: The biggest plus here is that it works with your existing setup, so there's no need to migrate your help desk. The simulation mode is incredibly useful; it lets you test how the agent would have handled past tickets, giving you a risk-free way to fine-tune its behavior before it goes live. It also brings your customer-facing and internal knowledge together, which is a big improvement over tools that keep that information separate.

• Cons: It’s very focused on customer service, ITSM, and knowledge workflows. If you’re looking for a general-purpose agent to automate a random mix of tasks, this probably isn’t the right fit.

• Pricing: The Business Plan, which you'll need for the AI Agent to automatically reply in your help desk, starts at $799/month for up to 3,000 AI interactions.

2. Lindy

Lindy is a no-code platform that lets you build a whole team of AI agents to handle tasks like sorting emails, updating your CRM, and scheduling meetings. It comes with a bunch of pre-built templates, making it fairly easy for small teams to start automating workflows in sales, operations, and support without needing a developer.

• Pros: Its template library is a huge time-saver for getting started. It can handle complex, multi-step workflows that cross different channels, including email and even voice calls.

• Cons: While the platform is flexible, that can also be a downside. Setting up really advanced, multi-agent workflows might get complicated if you're not particularly technical.

• Pricing: Lindy has a free plan with 400 credits per month. The paid Pro plan starts at $49.99/month and includes 5,000 credits.

3. Relevance AI

Relevance AI really excels when you need to create agents that can understand and act on your company’s specific internal data. It's a low-code platform that lets you build an "AI Workforce" for things like custom analytics or lead scoring that need deep business context.

• Pros: The agents have both short-term and long-term memory, which leads to much smarter and more contextual conversations. It also offers more flexibility for building custom logic than most strictly no-code tools.

• Cons: This one is definitely aimed at a more technical user. To get the most out of it, you’ll need a basic grasp of how APIs and data structures work.

• Pricing: There’s a free plan with 200 actions per month. The Pro plan starts at $19/month (when billed annually) and comes with 30,000 actions per year.

4. Make

Make is a well-known automation platform with a great drag-and-drop interface. While it’s not strictly an "AI agent" builder, its new AI modules let you add smart decision-making to your workflows, turning simple automations into more intelligent processes.

• Pros: The visual builder is fantastic for mapping out complex workflows with different branches and conditions. It also has a huge library of over 2,000 app integrations.

• Cons: The AI features can feel a bit like an add-on rather than a core part of the platform. It's less intuitive for creating a truly autonomous agent compared to some of the other tools on this list.

• Pricing: Make has a free plan to get you started. Paid plans with more features start at $10.59/month.

5. Zapier

You’ve probably heard of Zapier. It’s the standard tool for connecting apps, and now it’s getting smarter. With Zapier Copilot, you can just describe a workflow (or a "Zap") in plain English, and its AI will build the trigger and action steps for you.

• Pros: It’s incredibly easy to use, especially if you’re already in the Zapier ecosystem. It connects with over 7,000 different apps, which is more than any other platform.

• Cons: It’s really built for simple, one-off tasks. It doesn't have the memory, context, or advanced reasoning of a true AI agent, and you'll need a paid plan for multi-step Zaps with conditional logic.

• Pricing: A free plan is available for basic two-step Zaps. The Professional plan starts at $19.99/month (when billed annually) to unlock more powerful features.

6. Tidio

Tidio is all about creating good conversational experiences. Its AI agent, Lyro, can learn from your help center in just a few minutes and start giving human-like answers to customer questions on your website.

• Pros: It's great at understanding complicated questions and providing accurate, contextual answers. It also connects smoothly with e-commerce platforms like Shopify and WordPress, which is a big plus for online stores.

• Cons: It's mainly a customer-facing chatbot. It isn't built to handle backend operational tasks like data entry or process automation.

• Pricing: Tidio offers a free plan with 50 non-renewable Lyro conversations. To keep using it, the Lyro AI Agent add-on starts at $32.50/month for 50 conversations per month (when billed annually).

7. Intuit Assist

Intuit Assist is an AI assistant built right into the QuickBooks ecosystem. It's made of several specialized agents, including an Accounting Agent to sort your transactions and a Payments Agent to help manage invoicing.

• Pros: Because it’s so deeply connected to your financial data, it can automate a lot of boring bookkeeping work and offer genuinely helpful insights. It can even turn a photo of a document into an estimate or invoice.

• Cons: This is a very specific tool. It’s only really an option if your business already runs on QuickBooks.

• Pricing: Intuit Assist is included with a QuickBooks subscription. QuickBooks Online plans start at $19/month for the first three months.

3 quick tips for choosing an AI agent

Feeling a little overwhelmed? Here are a few simple tips to help you narrow things down.

• Tip 1: Start with a clear problem, not a vague goal. Don't just say, "I want to use AI." Instead, define the exact task you want to get off your plate. Is it "I need to answer common support questions faster" or "I want to stop manually entering lead data into my CRM"? A clear problem points you to the right tool.

• Tip 2: Prioritize platforms that work with your current tools. A great AI agent is useless if it forces you to ditch the help desk your team already knows. Look for platforms with solid, native integrations. For example, a platform like eesel AI connects to your existing systems, which means you can get started without a painful migration project.

• Tip 3: Demand a risk-free way to test. You won't know if an agent will work for your business until you test it with your own data. Look for tools that offer a free trial or, even better, a simulation mode. Platforms like eesel AI let you run the agent on your past tickets to see how it would have performed before you even turn it on.

A YouTube video explaining how to use the best AI agents for small business to increase productivity and automate tasks.

The takeaway: How AI agents can boost productivity

At the end of the day, the best AI agent for your small business is the one that solves a real problem reliably and affordably, without creating more work for your team. The goal isn't to replace people but to automate the repetitive tasks so your team can focus on work that requires creativity, strategy, and a human touch.

For small businesses ready to automate customer support and bring their internal knowledge together, eesel AI's platform offers a powerful, controllable, and risk-free solution. It plugs directly into tools like Zendesk and learns from all your scattered documents in minutes. Start your free trial today.

---