I tested 7 top Claude alternatives in 2025: Here’s what I found for business use

Let’s be honest: Claude is a pretty impressive AI. It’s a great "thinking partner" for brainstorming, untangling complex documents, and even knocking out a bit of code. But if you’re here, you’ve probably hit some sort of wall with it. Maybe you’re tired of regional restrictions, annoyed by its lack of real-time web access, or you just need an AI that does more than just chat, you need one that actually plugs into your work and gets things done.

That’s exactly what sent me down this rabbit hole. I set out to find the best Claude alternatives available today, specifically for teams trying to solve actual business problems. This isn’t just another list of chatbots. It’s a hands-on review of tools that are built for specific jobs, from customer support to deep-dive research. Let’s find the right one for you.

What are Claude alternatives?

At their core, Claude alternatives are AI assistants designed for natural conversations and tricky problem-solving. They can all write text, summarize info, and help you think through a problem.

But things are evolving. The best alternatives aren’t just trying to be another all-purpose chatbot. They’re starting to specialize. Some are becoming fantastic research assistants, others are zeroing in on marketing, and a new wave is emerging as AI agents that can automate entire chunks of your business.

How I picked the best Claude alternatives

I didn’t just google "AI tools" and call it a day. To make this list, every tool had to prove its worth for a business setting, and I judged them against a few straightforward criteria:

• Can it keep up? I looked at the basics. Is its writing quality, summarization skill, and general reasoning on par with Claude?

• Does it have a superpower? I looked for tools with unique features built for specific tasks like customer support, research, or content creation.

• Does it play nice with other tools? The best tools connect easily with the software you already use, whether that’s a helpdesk, a wiki, or a team chat app.

• Can I use it right now? I focused on tools you can sign up for and start using immediately, without having to get on a waitlist or sit through a mandatory sales demo.

• Is the price right? I looked for clear, fair pricing that matches the features you get, with no hidden costs.

The best Claude alternatives in 2025: A quick comparison

For those who just want the bottom line, here’s a quick look at our top picks.

Tool	Best For	Standout Feature	Pricing Model
eesel AI	Customer Support & Internal Knowledge	An autonomous helpdesk agent that you can test risk-free	Starts at $239/mo (annual)
Google Gemini	Google Workspace Users	Large context window & native Google integrations	Free, with a $19.99/mo advanced plan
ChatGPT	General-Purpose All-Rounder	Custom GPTs and a huge community	Free, with a $20/mo plus plan
Perplexity AI	Research & Fact-Finding	Real-time web search with cited sources	Free, with a $20/mo pro plan
Microsoft Copilot	Microsoft 365 Users	Seamless integration into Office and Windows	Free, with a $20/mo pro plan
Jasper	Marketing & Sales Content	Pre-built templates and brand voice features	Starts at $49/mo
Poe	Experimenting with Multiple Models	Access to various AI models in one place	Free, with a $19.99/mo subscription

A detailed look at the 7 best Claude alternatives

Alright, let’s get into the details of each tool, starting with our top recommendation for businesses looking to automate their support.

1. eesel AI

While most chatbots are built to be "thinking partners," eesel AI is designed to be an action-oriented teammate. It’s a specialized AI platform that hooks directly into the tools your business uses every day, like Zendesk, Slack, and Confluence, and acts as an autonomous agent for your support and internal teams.

What makes it such a great Claude alternative is that it’s built for workflows, not just conversations. Most enterprise AI platforms make you jump through hoops with sales calls, but eesel AI is completely self-serve. You can sign up, connect your helpdesk with one click, and have a working AI agent in a few minutes.

Its real strength comes from its control and safety features. eesel AI learns from your past tickets, help centers, and internal docs to give answers that are specific to your business. The best part? You can use its simulation mode to test the AI on thousands of your old tickets before it ever talks to a real customer. This lets you see exactly how it will behave, get a good idea of how many tickets it will solve, and roll it out with confidence.

A look at eesel AI's simulation mode, which is one of the best Claude alternatives for businesses who want to test their AI on real-world data before going live.

Pros:

• Goes live in minutes with one-click integrations, no sales call needed.

• Lets you simulate performance on your past tickets for risk-free testing.

• Pulls knowledge from all your sources (helpdesks, wikis, etc.) for accurate answers.

Cons:

• It’s a specialized tool for support and internal teams, not a general writing assistant.

Pricing:

eesel AI’s plans start at $299/month. The pricing is transparent and based on monthly interactions, so you don’t get punished with unpredictable fees for being successful.

2. Google Gemini

Gemini is Google’s direct competitor to Claude, and its biggest strength is its deep connection to the entire Google Workspace. If your team runs on Gmail, Google Docs, and Drive, Gemini just makes sense.

It’s great for individual productivity, letting you summarize an email thread in Gmail, draft a proposal in Docs, or find information from your Drive files. The advanced versions also have a huge context window, meaning you can drop in massive documents and ask questions about them, which is one of Claude’s main claims to fame.

Pros:

• Seamless integration with Google apps.

• Very large context window for analyzing long documents.

Cons:

• The user interface feels a bit less refined than some competitors.

• It’s more for personal productivity than automating team-wide workflows.

Pricing:

There’s a solid free version. Gemini Advanced, which has the most powerful models, costs $19.99/month.

3. ChatGPT

You can’t have a list of AI tools without mentioning the one that kicked this whole thing off. ChatGPT is still the benchmark for a general conversational AI. It’s a true jack-of-all-trades that’s good at writing, coding, brainstorming, and answering pretty much any question you throw its way.

Its main edge over Claude is its mature ecosystem. With Custom GPTs, you can build personalized versions of ChatGPT for specific tasks, like analyzing data or writing in a certain style. The downside is that getting it to work deeply with specific business processes, like handling support tickets, usually requires some custom development work or relying on other tools.

Pros:

• Extremely versatile for a huge range of tasks.

• Custom GPTs allow for a good amount of personalization.

Cons:

• The answers can feel a little generic if you don’t prompt them well.

• It doesn’t have the built-in integrations needed to automate business workflows out of the box.

Pricing:

The free version is fine for playing around but has limits. ChatGPT Plus is $20/month and gets you access to the newest models and features.

4. Perplexity AI

Perplexity calls itself an "answer engine," and it brilliantly solves one of the biggest frustrations with Claude: its lack of real-time internet access. It acts like a search engine and a conversational AI rolled into one, giving you up-to-date info on current topics.

What really makes it stand out is its transparency. Every answer from Perplexity includes citations, linking you right to the sources it used. This is a huge deal for anyone doing research, fact-checking, or just trying to avoid those weird AI "hallucinations." You can even tell it to focus its search on specific places like academic papers, YouTube, or Reddit for more targeted answers.

Pros:

• Gives current answers with clear links to its sources.

• The "Focus" feature helps you narrow your search.

Cons:

• Not the best tool for creative writing or generating long articles.

Pricing:

The free version is very capable. The Pro version is $20/month and gives you more daily uses and access to the latest models like GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

5. Microsoft Copilot

Just like Gemini is the obvious choice for Google fans, Copilot is the way to go for teams living in the Microsoft world. It’s built right into Windows, the Edge browser, and the entire Microsoft 365 suite.

Copilot really comes to life when you use it across Microsoft apps. It can build a PowerPoint from a Word doc, summarize a long Teams meeting you skipped, or help you analyze data in Excel with plain English commands. Since Microsoft is a big investor in OpenAI, Copilot runs on the same powerful models as ChatGPT, so you get both convenience and performance.

Pros:

• Seamlessly integrated into Microsoft products.

• Powered by OpenAI’s latest and greatest models.

Cons:

• Its best features are behind the Copilot Pro subscription.

• Not as useful if your team doesn’t use Microsoft tools.

Pricing:

A free version comes with Windows and Edge. Copilot Pro costs $20/month per user.

6. Jasper

Jasper was one of the first AI writing tools on the scene, and it’s still a top pick for marketing and sales teams. While Claude can write pretty well, Jasper is a specialized tool full of features made for creating on-brand content that actually sells.

It has a massive library of templates for everything from blog post outlines and Facebook ad copy to video scripts. Its Brand Voice feature is really cool, you can upload your style guides and it will learn to write in your company’s voice. It’s a great example of how a specialized tool can beat a generalist for a specific job.

Pros:

• Great for creating high-quality marketing and sales content quickly.

• The Brand Voice feature helps keep your messaging consistent.

Cons:

• It’s more expensive than the general-purpose chatbots.

• It’s not built for anything beyond content creation.

Pricing:

Jasper’s plans start at $49/month.

7. Poe

Created by Quora, Poe is like an AI playground. It’s a single app where you can chat with a bunch of different AI models from different companies, including OpenAI’s GPT models, Anthropic’s Claude models, and Google’s Gemini.

Poe is the perfect Claude alternative if you love to experiment. If you’ve ever wondered which AI gives the best answer to a certain question, Poe lets you find out without having to sign up for five different services. You can even build your own simple bots based on different models.

Pros:

• Access multiple top AI models with one subscription.

• Makes it easy to compare outputs from different models for the same prompt.

Cons:

• It’s more for AI enthusiasts than a dedicated business team.

• Some features might be more limited than if you used the models directly.

Pricing:

The free tier gives you a few messages on the premium models. Full access is $19.99/month.

This video explores some of the best Claude alternatives available in 2025 to meet various user needs.

How to choose the right Claude alternative for your business

So, how do you pick the right tool from this list? It really just comes down to what you’re trying to do.

• What’s your main goal here? If you just need to brainstorm, a generalist like ChatGPT or Gemini is probably fine. But if you’re writing marketing copy, you’ll get better results with Jasper. And if you’re trying to automate customer support, you need a tool built for that job.

• Does it need to connect to your other tools? This is a big one. If your AI needs to read your internal wiki and take action in your helpdesk, you need something designed for that. This is where a platform like eesel AI really stands out, because it’s built from the ground up to connect to your knowledge sources and support tools.

• Do you need to try before you buy? For something as important as customer support, you can’t just flip a switch and cross your fingers. The ability to simulate how an AI will perform with your real data is a must-have. Look for tools that give you a safe environment to test things out.

• What’s your budget? Are you okay with a bill that changes based on usage, or do you need a predictable, flat monthly fee? Make sure the pricing model works for your business.

Move beyond a generalist for specialized work

Claude is a great general-purpose AI, but the game has changed. We’ve moved past the novelty of a single chatbot that can do a little bit of everything. Today, the best Claude alternatives are often the ones built for specific, high-value business needs.

For things like automating customer service, building an internal knowledge base that people actually use, or triaging support tickets, a specialized platform will always give you more control, better integrations, and a faster return. A generalist can chat, but a specialist gets the work done.

If you’re looking for an AI that does more than just chat, see how eesel AI can help your support operations. You can connect your helpdesk and simulate its performance on your own tickets in under five minutes. Start your free trial today.