A complete Cohere AI review for 2025: Features, pricing, and alternatives

You've probably heard Cohere's name popping up a lot in the AI world. It’s often mentioned alongside giants like OpenAI, but it tackles the problem from a different angle, with a real focus on what businesses care about: data privacy and customization.

But what does that actually mean for you? If you’re thinking about using AI for customer support, IT help, or just better internal answers, you need to know if it's the right tool for the job. This review will give you a straight-up look at Cohere's models, its biggest strengths, and some of the drawbacks that might give you pause. We'll help you figure out if building on Cohere is the right move, or if a more specialized, out-of-the-box solution makes more sense.

What is Cohere AI?

At its heart, Cohere is an AI platform that provides access to a suite of large language models (LLMs) through an API. You can think of it as a set of powerful AI engines that your developers can use to build custom applications. The company really leans into features that big businesses need, like top-notch data privacy, flexible deployment, and security.

Their main tools fall into a few key buckets:

• Generative Models (Command): These are the models that write text, answer questions, and summarize long documents.

• Advanced Retrieval (Embed & Rerank): This is the tech behind smart semantic search, making sure the answers you get are actually relevant and accurate.

• AI Platforms (North & Compass): These are more complete solutions for internal search and complex workflows, designed to be deployed privately.

Cohere is definitely aimed at developers and large companies with technical teams ready to build their own AI tools. It’s less of a plug-and-play product and more of a powerful toolkit for creating something from scratch.

Cohere AI's key features and models

To really get what Cohere offers, we need to pop the hood and look at the technology. Let's break down the different models and platforms that make up their world.

Generative models: Command R+ and the Command family

The Command family of models is Cohere's main event for generative AI. These are the workhorses you’d use to build a chatbot, draft an email, or get the gist of a long report. One of their standout features, and something users often rave about, is their strength in grounded generation with citations.

Models like Command R+ are built for what's called Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Basically, this means they’re designed to pull answers from a specific set of documents you give them and then point to the exact source. For a business, that's a huge deal. It means the AI isn't just pulling answers out of thin air; it's giving you verifiable information based on your own knowledge base.

As one user on Reddit noted, the accurate, out-of-the-box citations are a 'WIN!' compared to other models that can struggle with this.

Advanced retrieval models: Embed and Rerank

This is where Cohere gets really interesting for anyone building a search tool.

• Embed: This model's job is to turn your text into numbers (called vectors). This lets a system understand the meaning behind the words, not just the keywords. It’s the magic behind true semantic search, where you can ask a question naturally and get results that are conceptually related, even if they don't use your exact phrasing.

• Rerank: After a search system pulls up a bunch of possibly relevant documents, the Rerank model jumps in. It sorts through that initial list and pushes the most relevant results to the top of the pile.

Using Embed and Rerank together is a great way to build incredibly accurate internal knowledge bases or customer help centers that actually help people find what they're looking for.

Enterprise platforms: North and Compass

Beyond just the raw models, Cohere also offers more complete platforms.

• Compass: This is Cohere's intelligent search system, meant to help employees dig up information and insights from all of a company's scattered internal data.

• North: This is the all-in-one AI agent platform that combines chat, search, and the ability to automate tasks. Its main selling point, as TechCrunch pointed out, is how flexibly it can be deployed. You can install North in a private cloud, on your own servers, or even in a completely offline environment. This is a massive advantage for organizations with super strict security and data privacy rules.

Where Cohere AI shines: Strengths and use cases

Cohere has some clear strong suits, especially if you’re their target customer. But as we'll see, these strengths also highlight why a different kind of tool might be a better choice for some teams.

Enterprise-grade security and private deployment

Cohere's ability to be deployed privately is its biggest advantage. For industries like finance, healthcare, or government, letting sensitive data leave their own servers just isn't an option. Cohere gets around this by letting you run their AI inside your own firewall. They also promise that your data is never used to train their general models, which is a big privacy worry for many businesses.

That’s a huge plus, but it's worth knowing you don't have to host everything yourself to get solid security. For example, platforms like eesel AI also make security a priority, using SOC 2 Type II-certified infrastructure and offering EU data residency. This makes strong security available without the headache and cost of managing your own AI setup.

Performance in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Like we said before, Cohere is a monster when it comes to RAG. For customer support or internal helpdesks, giving answers that come directly from official documentation is essential. AI "hallucinations" or made-up information can cause real problems. Cohere's skill here makes it a powerful engine for any app that needs to answer questions based on a trusted source of knowledge.

A powerful and flexible API for developers

There's no doubt that Cohere is made for developers. Its API is well-documented and gives technical teams the freedom to build highly customized AI applications from the ground up.

Of course, this is both a blessing and a curse. It's great for a company with a dedicated engineering team, but it's a non-starter for everyone else. A support manager can't just plug the Cohere API into their helpdesk and expect it to work. This is where tools like eesel AI fit in. It offers an incredibly straightforward platform that lets non-technical folks build and launch powerful AI agents in minutes, without writing a single line of code.

Potential limitations and considerations

This is where things get real for most businesses. Cohere’s strengths are undeniable, but they come with trade-offs you need to understand before jumping in.

The "some assembly required" problem

Cohere gives you the engine, but you have to build the car around it. To make their models useful, you need to create the entire application yourself. That includes the user interface, the rules for when the AI should answer versus escalate to a human, and all the connections to your existing tools like Zendesk or Slack.

That's a lot of work. With a platform like eesel AI, you get a complete, ready-to-go solution. Its AI Agent and AI Copilot are pre-built to work right inside your helpdesk, learning from your past tickets and knowledge articles through one-click integrations. You can go from signing up to having a working AI in a single afternoon.

Opaque and enterprise-focused pricing

If you visit Cohere's pricing page, you'll find clear, per-token pricing for their API. But for their main platforms, North and Compass, the only option you'll see is "Contact sales."

This lack of transparency makes it impossible for teams to quickly figure out a budget or even try the product without a long sales process. You're left guessing what the total cost will be, which can be a deal-breaker for teams that need to get moving. In contrast, eesel AI has transparent and predictable pricing. Plans are listed right on the website, they’re based on a set number of interactions, and you can even start with a monthly plan you can cancel anytime.

The need for dedicated technical resources

When you put it all together, the picture is pretty clear: to get value from Cohere, you need a team of developers to build the app, data scientists to tweak the models, and an IT team to manage everything. This isn't just a one-time setup cost; it's a significant, ongoing investment in technical staff.

This is completely different from a tool like eesel AI, which is built for the person actually using it, like a Head of Support or an IT Manager. Its simulation mode lets you safely test your AI on thousands of your own past tickets to see exactly how it will perform before it ever talks to a customer, all from a simple dashboard.

Cohere AI pricing explained

For its API access, Cohere’s pricing is based on "tokens," which are basically pieces of words. Here’s a quick look at their pay-as-you-go rates for their most popular models:

Model Family	Input Price (per 1M tokens)	Output Price (per 1M tokens)
Command R+	$3.00	$15.00
Command R	$0.50	$1.50
Command (legacy)	$1.00	$2.00
Embed & Rerank	Varies by model and usage	Varies

Just remember, these prices are only for using the models. They don't include the cost of developers, servers, or ongoing maintenance. And as we mentioned, the pricing for their enterprise platforms, North and Compass, is only available if you get a custom quote. That lack of clarity is a big takeaway from our Cohere AI review and something to keep in mind.

The verdict: A powerful toolkit for builders, not a solution for operators

So, what's the bottom line?

Cohere AI is a fantastic choice for large companies with dedicated AI and engineering teams that need to build custom, super-secure AI tools from scratch. If you have the people, the budget, and the need for deep customization and private hosting, Cohere gives you a powerful and flexible set of building blocks.

However, for most customer service, IT, and internal support teams who just need a practical solution that works with their existing tools, Cohere probably isn't the right fit. The time, money, and technical know-how needed to turn their models into a functioning support agent are just too much for most organizations.

A better alternative: eesel AI

This is where eesel AI shines. It's designed to solve the exact problems that support teams run into when trying to use AI. It isn't a set of models you have to build on; it's a complete automation platform that plugs right into your helpdesk and knowledge sources.

Here’s why it's a better fit for most support and IT teams:

• Go live in minutes, not months: Connect to Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Confluence, Google Docs, and over 100 other tools in a few clicks. No developer needed.

• Total control for support managers: A simple prompt editor lets you set your AI's tone of voice, and a workflow builder lets you decide exactly which types of tickets to automate. You're always in control.

• Unify all your knowledge: Train the AI on your past tickets, help articles, and internal docs to provide accurate, context-aware answers right away.

• Test with confidence: The simulation mode shows you exactly how the AI will perform on your real historical tickets, giving you a precise forecast of your automation rate before you turn it on.

This Cohere AI review video explores if the all-in-one LLM platform is the right choice for your needs in 2025.

Here’s a simple comparison:

Feature	Cohere AI	eesel AI
Ideal User	Developers & Data Scientists	Support & IT Managers
Setup Time	Weeks to months	Minutes
Core Offering	Foundational AI Models (API)	Full Support Automation Platform
Helpdesk Integration	Requires custom development	1-Click (Zendesk, Intercom, etc.)
Pricing Model	Usage-based + Opaque Enterprise	Transparent, flat-rate tiers

If you're looking for a powerful AI engine to build on, Cohere is a top contender. But if you're looking for a solution that will actually start solving your support tickets this week, then give eesel AI a try.