I tested the top 5 Cohere AI alternatives to find the best for businesses in 2025

Let’s talk about Cohere. It’s a big name in enterprise AI, and for good reason. Their language models are seriously powerful. But here’s what I keep hearing from teams on the ground: it’s not always the easiest tool to work with. Many businesses are on the hunt for Cohere AI alternatives that are just… simpler. Simpler to set up, simpler to connect with the tools they already use, and a whole lot simpler on the budget.

So, I went ahead and did the legwork. I spent the last few weeks testing out the main players to find the best options for businesses that need serious AI power without the serious engineering headache. This is my hands-on comparison of the 5 best alternatives I found, designed to help you make a smart choice for your team.

What is Cohere?

First, what are we even talking about? Cohere is basically a high-octane engine for developers. It’s an AI platform that provides API access to some very advanced large language models (LLMs). Their main tools are "Command" for generating text, "Embed" for building smart search, and "Rerank" for fine-tuning those search results to be more accurate.

It’s an incredible toolkit if you’re a large company with a team of developers ready to build custom AI applications from scratch. The catch? You have to be comfortable with code and have the time and resources to turn those powerful models into a finished product your team can actually use.

Why explore Cohere AI alternatives?

Okay, if Cohere is this powerful toolkit, why is "Cohere AI alternatives" even a search term? It boils down to a few common headaches I see teams run into all the time.

• It’s a heavy lift to get started: Let’s be honest, most developer-first AI platforms aren’t built for speed. Getting started usually involves a chain of sales calls and mandatory demos before you can even touch the product. Then, it’s over to your engineering team for a major API integration project. It’s a long way from a quick setup.

• It asks you to ditch your current tools: Some AI solutions want you to completely change how you work. They might require you to migrate away from the helpdesk you’ve used for years, like Zendesk or Intercom. That means throwing out workflows your team knows and loves, which is a huge disruption.

• The costs can be a wild guess: Pricing models that charge "per token" or "per resolution" can make your finance team nervous. All it takes is one busy month of support tickets for your bill to jump unexpectedly. This makes it almost impossible to forecast your budget with any real confidence.

• You don’t get much control: A lot of AI tools can feel like a black box. You give them your knowledge, they give you answers, and that’s about it. You can’t easily tell the AI what its personality should be, what specific questions it should handle, or what it should do besides just answering a question.

Our criteria for the best Cohere AI alternatives

To keep this comparison grounded in reality, I judged each platform on stuff that actually matters to a busy support or IT team. I wasn’t just looking for horsepower; I was looking for tools that are genuinely useful day-to-day.

Here’s what I looked for:

• Ease of setup: How fast can you get it working? I prioritized platforms that are truly self-serve, letting you get up and running in minutes without needing to talk to sales.

• Seamless integration: Does it work with your current setup? The best tools should plug right into what you already use (Zendesk, Slack, Confluence), not make you start from scratch.

• Customization and control: Can you actually tweak the AI? I looked for tools that let you define the AI’s tone of voice, tell it exactly which knowledge to use, and build custom workflows without needing a computer science degree.

• Risk-free testing: Can you try before you buy? A solid platform should let you see how the AI would perform on your own historical data, so you can build a confidence before it ever interacts with a real customer.

• Transparent pricing: Is the cost clear and predictable? I favored platforms with flat-rate plans that don’t punish you with surprise fees for being successful.

Quick comparison of the top Cohere AI alternatives in 2025

Before we dive deep, here’s a quick cheat sheet on how the top 5 platforms compare.

Tool	Best For	Key Feature	Integrates with Existing Helpdesk?	Pricing Model
eesel AI	Customer support & IT teams	Genuinely simple, self-serve setup and simulation	Yes (one-click)	Predictable, based on interactions
Google Gemini	Teams deep in the Google ecosystem	Multimodal capabilities and massive context window	No (Requires custom dev)	Per token/character
Anthropic (Claude)	Analyzing long documents and complex conversations	Industry-leading context window and safety features	No (Requires custom dev)	Per token
OpenAI	General-purpose AI & cutting-edge performance	State-of-the-art reasoning and a vast ecosystem	No (Requires custom dev)	Per token / Per user
Amazon Bedrock	Companies heavily invested in AWS	Access to multiple models within the AWS ecosystem	No (Requires custom dev)	Per token / Provisioned throughput

The 5 best Cohere AI alternatives for businesses in 2025

1. eesel AI

• Description: eesel AI is an AI platform designed specifically for customer service and internal support teams. Instead of a raw API, it’s a complete solution that connects directly to your helpdesk, chat tools, and knowledge bases to automate support, help agents write replies, and answer internal questions.

• Why it’s on the list: Honestly, eesel AI feels like the answer to all the frustrations I listed earlier. I signed up and got a working AI agent running on my test helpdesk in about five minutes, by myself, with no demo call. It connected to my Zendesk account with one click and instantly started learning from old tickets, a few Google Docs, and our public help center. It’s built for the people actually doing the work in support and IT.

A look at how eesel AI, one of the top Cohere AI alternatives, connects to various business applications to train its AI agent.::A look at how eesel AI, one of the top Cohere AI alternatives, connects to various business applications to train its AI agent.

• Pros:

  • It’s genuinely easy to set up: You can get started and see it working in minutes. It’s properly self-serve.

  • You have total control: The prompt editor is straightforward. You can easily define the AI’s personality, tell it what to do (like tag a ticket or look up an order in Shopify), and pick exactly which types of tickets it should handle.

This screenshot shows the customization and control features available in Cohere AI alternatives like eesel AI.::This screenshot shows the customization and control features available in Cohere AI alternatives like eesel AI.

*   **Risk-free simulation:** This was my favorite part. I could run the AI over thousands of my past support tickets to see exactly how it would have responded. This gave me a real resolution rate and a clear idea of the ROI before I even thought about turning it on for live customers.  

This image showcases the simulation feature in eesel AI, a key advantage for businesses looking for Cohere AI alternatives.::This image showcases the simulation feature in eesel AI, a key advantage for businesses looking for Cohere AI alternatives.

*   **[Unified knowledge](https://www.eesel.ai/blog/how-to-build-an-ai-knowledge-base-in-2025):** It learns from everywhere your information is stored, not just one place. This means it understands the real context of your business without a ton of manual work.  

An infographic illustrating the unified knowledge capabilities of Cohere AI alternatives.::An infographic illustrating the unified knowledge capabilities of Cohere AI alternatives.

*   **Predictable pricing:** The pricing is a simple, flat monthly fee based on interactions. You won’t get a surprise bill at the end of a busy month.  

• Cons:

  • It doesn’t have the massive brand recognition of Google or OpenAI, so it might not be the first name that comes to mind for some companies.

  • The no-code setup is powerful for most things, but if you want to build super complex, multi-system automations, you might want to have a quick chat with their team to get the most out of it.

• Pricing: eesel AI’s pricing is refreshingly simple.

  • Team: $299/month ($239/month if billed annually) for up to 1,000 AI interactions.

  • Business: $799/month ($639/month if billed annually) for up to 3,000 interactions, and it unlocks features like training on past tickets and AI Actions.

  • Custom: For unlimited interactions and more advanced needs.

2. Google Gemini

• Description: Gemini is Google’s big family of AI models. It’s the brain behind many of Google’s AI features and can understand text, images, audio, and video. Developers can access it through the Google AI platform.

• Why it’s on the list: When it comes to raw power and handling different types of media, Gemini is top-tier. Its ability to process different kinds of information and its huge context window make it a beast for deep analysis.

• Pros:

  • Excellent at processing and connecting information from text, images, and other formats.

  • Fits perfectly if your company already lives and breathes in Google Workspace and Google Cloud.

• Cons:

  • Here’s the big "but": it’s a foundational model, not a support solution. You can’t just flip a switch and have Gemini running in your helpdesk. You need an engineering team to build a whole application around its API, which is a massive project.

  • The pricing for Vertex AI, which is how you access Gemini, is famously complex. It’s based on characters or tokens, which makes it very hard to predict what you’ll spend on something like support automation.

• Pricing: Pay-as-you-go based on the number of characters or tokens you use. A Gemini model might cost something like $0.000125 per 1,000 characters for input and $0.000375 per 1,000 for output, but this can change a lot depending on the exact model.

3. Anthropic (Claude)

• Description: Developed by Anthropic, the Claude family of models is well-known for its focus on AI safety and its impressive ability to handle enormous chunks of text.

• Why it’s on the list: Claude’s main claim to fame is its massive context window. It can read and summarize incredibly long documents, like legal contracts or entire research papers, with great accuracy. This makes it perfect for deep research tasks.

• Pros:

  • Best-in-class for anything involving very long documents or maintaining context over a long, winding conversation.

  • It has a strong reputation for producing "safer" and more reliable outputs, which is a big deal for many businesses.

• Cons:

  • Just like Gemini, Claude is an API product first and foremost. It’s the engine, but you have to build the car. That means a big technical investment to make it a useful tool for your support team.

  • It’s not really built for specific workflow automation, like tagging tickets or performing actions in other applications.

• Pricing: Claude’s pricing is split into a few options.

  • Web App: There’s a free version, a Pro plan for $20/month, and a Team plan from $30/user/month (minimum 5 users).

  • API: It’s pay-as-you-go based on tokens. Their Sonnet 4.5 model costs about $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. This can add up fast in a busy support environment.

4. OpenAI (ChatGPT for Business)

• Description: This is the company that got everyone talking about generative AI. OpenAI provides access to its top-tier models, like the GPT series, through products like ChatGPT and a developer API.

• Why it’s on the list: OpenAI’s models are often considered the benchmark for raw intelligence, creative text generation, and general problem-solving.

• Pros:

  • Top-of-the-line performance for a huge range of reasoning and creative tasks.

  • A massive developer community and tons of documentation make it easier for engineers to get started.

• Cons:

  • Building a reliable support automation system on top of the OpenAI API is a complex, expensive, and long-term engineering effort. It’s not a plug-and-play solution by any stretch.

  • Even with enterprise privacy features, some companies are still wary about sending sensitive customer data to a third-party model.

• Pricing: OpenAI’s pricing changes depending on the product.

  • ChatGPT Plus/Pro: $20/month or $200/month for individual power users.

  • ChatGPT Business: Starts at $25/user/month (billed annually) for a secure workspace for your team.

  • API: Pay-per-token, with costs that depend on which model you use. For a business, this needs careful monitoring to avoid a budget blowout.

5. Amazon Bedrock

• Description: Amazon Bedrock is AWS’s entry into the generative AI space. It works as a single access point to a bunch of different foundational models from companies like Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, and Amazon’s own Titan models.

• Why it’s on the list: For any company that’s already heavily invested in the AWS ecosystem, Bedrock is a natural fit. It gives you a single, secure place to play with and deploy different AI models.

• Pros:

  • You get the flexibility to try out and switch between different leading AI models without juggling a bunch of different APIs.

  • It’s built on the secure and scalable AWS cloud, which is a major benefit for many large companies.

• Cons:

  • At its core, it’s an infrastructure platform for developers who know their way around AWS. It’s not a ready-made application you can just give to your support team.

  • The pricing is incredibly complex. You pay per token, and the rate depends on the model provider, the specific model, and whether you pay on-demand or commit to a certain capacity. It’s powerful, but it can be a lot to wrap your head around.

• Pricing: Varies wildly. As an example, using Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet on-demand costs $0.003 per 1,000 input tokens and $0.015 per 1,000 output tokens. And you pay for that on top of your normal AWS costs.

This video provides an overview of several AI services that serve as excellent Cohere AI alternatives for various business needs.

How to choose the right Cohere AI alternative for your team

Feeling overwhelmed? I get it. Here are a few practical ways to cut through the noise.

Think about your current tools

Do you need an AI that works with your existing helpdesk, or are you really ready to build and maintain a whole new system from the ground up? A solution that just plugs in will save you a ton of time, money, and sanity.

Focus on the user experience (for your team)

If your support lead or IT manager will be in charge of the AI, choose a platform they can actually use without filing a ticket with engineering for every little change. A friendly, no-code interface is key.

Insist on a test drive

Don’t just take a sales demo at face value. Look for a platform that offers a free trial or, even better, a simulation mode. Something that shows you exactly how it will perform with your real data is invaluable.

Figure out the true cost

Look past the per-token price. Remember to factor in the cost of developer hours, project delays, and the risk of unpredictable bills. A predictable, flat-rate plan is almost always a better deal for support teams in the long run.

Cohere AI alternatives: Get power and simplicity with eesel AI

So, what’s the takeaway from all this? The big platforms from Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, and AWS offer incredible raw power. No question about it. But they’re just the engine. For most teams, you still have to build the entire car around them, which is a slow and expensive process that’s out of reach for most support and IT departments.

eesel AI is the solution that closes that gap. It takes all the power of enterprise-grade AI and puts it into a platform that your business team can actually set up, manage, and control themselves. You get all the good stuff, automating tickets, drafting replies, and unifying knowledge, without the six-month implementation project and rollercoaster costs.

You can go live in minutes, connect it to the tools you already rely on, test its performance with zero risk, and get simple, predictable pricing.

Ready to see how easy AI for customer support can be? Try eesel AI for free and you can simulate its impact on your past tickets in just a few minutes.