The 5 best Microsoft Copilot alternatives for your business in 2025

It feels like you can’t go a day without hearing about a new AI "copilot." GitHub has one for coding, and Microsoft Copilot is baked into just about everything in the 365 universe. And honestly, for a lot of general office tasks, they’re pretty handy. If your team lives and breathes Microsoft products, Copilot can feel like a superpower.

But the moment you try to get it to do something specific, like handle a customer support ticket correctly, things get messy. Trying to make a generalist tool understand the very specific, often chaotic world of a support or IT team is… tough. You end up fighting with customization, wrestling with integrations for tools like Zendesk or Intercom, and feeling like you’re dealing with a black box you can’t really control.

That’s what sent me down this rabbit hole. I started looking for the best Copilot alternatives that were actually built for the way real teams work. I wanted something for support automation, for helping our agents, and for pulling all our scattered company knowledge together. This is the list of the top five I found that give you more control and a lot less frustration.

What are Copilot alternatives for business?

When people talk about Copilot alternatives for business, they don’t just mean another chatbot. These are AI tools designed to plug right into the software you already depend on every day.

Think of it less like a new app you have to learn, and more like a smart upgrade for the tools you already use. It’s like a central brain that connects to your help desk, your internal wikis like Confluence or Google Docs, and your chat apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams.

They’re built to do very specific jobs, such as:

• Handling common support tickets on their own so your team can focus on harder problems.

• Helping human agents by drafting accurate replies that sound like they came from a real person on your team.

• Figuring out who should handle which request and sending it to the right place automatically.

• Acting as a smart Q&A bot for your own employees, so they can find answers without having to ping someone in IT.

Basically, they’re less of a general assistant and more of a specialized, automated member of your team.

What we looked for in good Copilot alternatives

We didn’t just skim feature lists. We focused on what actually helps a busy support or IT team get their work done better and faster.

Here’s the no-fluff criteria we used:

1. How fast can you actually use it? Seriously, how quickly can you get from signing up to seeing it work? We gave top marks to tools that are genuinely self-serve. You shouldn’t have to book a demo and sit through a sales pitch just to try something out. We wanted tools you could start using in minutes, not months.

2. Can you tell it what to do? The best tools don’t just run on autopilot. They let you set up specific rules for when the AI should step in and when it should back off. You should be able to control its actions, its tone, and even its personality.

3. Does it learn from your business? We looked for platforms that could connect to all your company knowledge, especially the treasure trove of info in your past support tickets. An AI is only useful if its answers are specific to your company.

4. Can you test it safely? Rolling out a new AI can be nerve-wracking. A good simulation mode that lets you test the AI on your past data before it ever interacts with a real customer is a must-have. It takes all the guesswork out of the process.

5. Is the pricing straightforward? We looked for tools with clear, flat-rate pricing. Confusing "per-resolution" fees that charge you more when you’re busy are a major turn-off.

The best Copilot alternatives in 2025 at a glance

In a hurry? Here’s the quick-and-dirty summary of our top picks.

Tool	Best for	Key Feature	Pricing Model	Self-Serve Setup?
eesel AI	Customer service & ITSM automation	Go live in minutes with powerful simulations	Flat monthly fee	Yes
ClickUp	Project management with AI	AI-powered task and sub-task generation	Per user, per month	Yes
Zapier Chatbots	Building simple, embeddable web chatbots	Easy-to-use chatbot builder with integrations	Per chatbot, with usage limits	Yes
ChatGPT Team	General-purpose AI for content and brainstorming	Access to advanced models like GPT-4o	Per user, per month	Yes
Microsoft Copilot	General productivity in the M365 ecosystem	Deep integration with Office and Teams	Per user, per month	Yes

The 5 best Copilot alternatives to automate your workflows in 2025

Alright, let’s get into the details. Here’s a closer look at the top five alternatives, what they’re great for, and where they might not be the best fit.

1. eesel AI

eesel AI isn’t trying to do everything for everyone. It’s laser-focused on being an automation powerhouse for customer service. It plugs directly into your help desk, chat tools, and knowledge bases to automate the frontline and give your agents a serious boost.

Why it’s on the list: eesel AI directly tackles the biggest frustrations with generic AI. You can get it running in minutes with a one-click integration, and its simulation mode is fantastic. It lets you see exactly how the AI would have handled your past tickets before you flip the switch. This removes all the risk and anxiety. You get complete control over which tickets get automated and can build custom workflows without needing to call in a developer.

The eesel AI simulation dashboard shows how these Copilot alternatives can predict performance on past tickets before going live.

Pros:

• You can actually set it up yourself: No sales calls, no lengthy onboarding process. You can sign up and get it working in minutes, which is a breath of fresh air.

• Test without the stress: The simulation mode shows you real numbers on how many tickets it can resolve and how much you’ll save, so you know the value before you pay anything.

• Connects all your knowledge: It learns from everything, past tickets, Confluence, Google Docs, and over 100 other apps, to provide answers that are actually relevant.

• Simple pricing: The plans are flat-rate. No weird fees that pop up when you have a busy month. You know exactly what your bill will be.

Cons:

• It’s built for support, IT, and knowledge management. If you need an AI for project management or writing marketing copy, this isn’t it.

Pricing: Plans start at $299/month for the Team plan. The Business plan, which trains on past tickets and includes custom actions, is $799/month.

2. ClickUp

If your team’s biggest headache is keeping projects on track, not answering support tickets, then ClickUp is a really interesting alternative. It’s a full-blown project management tool that has smartly woven AI features (called ClickUp Brain) into everything it does.

Why it’s on the list: For teams focused on project management, ClickUp is a powerful contender. Its AI can help you write task descriptions, summarize long comment chains, and even draft project plans from scratch. It puts AI right where you’re already doing your work.

Pros:

• The AI is built into a project management tool that many teams already love.

• It’s great for creating content and spitballing ideas related to your projects and internal docs.

• It has a massive library of project templates for just about anything you can think of.

Cons:

• It’s not a customer support tool. It doesn’t have the integrations needed to actually resolve tickets in your help desk.

• The AI feels more like a helpful sidekick for its project management features rather than a powerful automation tool on its own.

Pricing: Paid plans start at $7 per user, per month. The ClickUp Brain add-on is an extra $5 per user, per month.

3. Zapier Chatbots

Sometimes you don’t need a massive, all-knowing AI. Sometimes you just need a simple chatbot on your website to answer basic questions and point people in the right direction. For that, Zapier Chatbots is hard to beat. It lets you build and embed a custom bot on your site that’s trained on your own documents.

Why it’s on the list: If all you need is a simple, public-facing chatbot for your website, Zapier makes it incredibly easy. Its real magic is how it connects to the rest of the Zapier universe. You can have a chatbot conversation trigger a workflow in thousands of other applications.

A screenshot of the Zapier AI chatbot, one of the simplest Copilot alternatives, capturing user information to trigger an automation workflow.

Pros:

• It’s ridiculously easy to build and put on your website, no coding needed.

• It can connect to over 6,000 apps through Zapier, so you can automate follow-up actions.

• The free plan is pretty generous, giving you enough to see if it works for you.

Cons:

• It’s not meant for internal use or complex help desk automation. It can’t, for example, resolve a ticket in Freshdesk or update a customer’s profile.

• It doesn’t have advanced features like helping your agents or running simulations.

Pricing: There’s a free plan to get you started. Paid plans with more features start at $20/month.

4. ChatGPT Team

Ah, ChatGPT. The one that started it all. The temptation to just get a team plan and try to make it work for everything is real. The Team plan gives you a shared workspace to use powerful models like GPT-4o and create custom GPTs for your own internal tasks.

Why it’s on the list: For many teams, this is the default first step into AI. And for things like brainstorming marketing copy, summarizing articles, or general research, it’s still one of the most capable tools out there. It’s an alternative for teams who want a general-purpose AI sandbox rather than a specific workflow tool.

A screenshot of the ChatGPT interface, a general-purpose option among Copilot alternatives, being used to generate a marketing email.

Pros:

• You get direct access to OpenAI’s latest and greatest models.

• You can build your own custom GPTs that are tailored to your team’s specific needs.

• It’s fantastic for a huge range of creative and analytical tasks.

Cons:

• It’s totally disconnected from your business tools. There are no built-in integrations for your help desk or internal knowledge base.

• Using it means a lot of manual copy-pasting, which is slow and can create security headaches.

• It’s a powerful assistant, but it still needs a person to tell it what to do. It doesn’t automate anything on its own.

Pricing: The Team plan is $25 per user, per month (billed annually).

5. Microsoft Copilot

Finally, let’s talk about the tool we’re comparing everything against. It’s only fair to include it so you have a clear baseline. Microsoft Copilot is deeply integrated into the Microsoft 365 world, popping up in Teams, Outlook, Word, and Excel. It’s meant to be your everyday assistant, using context from your emails and documents to help you out.

Why it’s on the list: For companies that are 100% committed to the Microsoft ecosystem, Copilot provides a smooth, integrated experience that’s hard to match within those specific apps.

Pros:

• The integration with Microsoft 365 apps is seamless.

• It can pull context from your calendar, emails, and files to give you surprisingly relevant help inside that bubble.

• You might already be paying for it as part of your Microsoft subscription.

Cons:

• It’s much less useful if your company uses a mix of tools like Google Workspace, Slack, or Zendesk.

• It’s not designed for customer support and is missing key features like ticket sorting, agent assistance, or simulations.

• Getting it customized just right can be a complicated project that requires a lot of IT help.

Pricing: Copilot is included with some Microsoft 365 plans. The standalone Copilot Pro plan costs $20 per user, per month.

Key things to consider when choosing your Copilot alternatives

Feeling a bit stuck? Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself to help you pick the right tool for your team.

Define your core problem

Before looking at any fancy AI features, ask yourself: what is the single biggest thing we’re trying to fix? Is it slow response times? Too many repetitive tickets? New agents taking too long to ramp up? Your main goal will point you toward the right kind of tool.

Prioritize a self-serve trial

Don’t commit to a tool you can’t try first. Look for platforms that let you sign up and test things out on your own. A tool with a solid simulation mode is even better because it lets you prove the value with your own data before you spend a penny.

Check for essential integrations

An AI tool is only as good as the information it can access. Make sure your choice has easy, one-click integrations for your help desk, chat app, and wherever you store your company knowledge. If you need to write custom code just to connect it, it’s probably not the right one.

Understand the pricing model

Don’t just look at the monthly price. A low per-user fee can look great, but a "per-resolution" model can get very expensive, very fast. You’re basically punished for being successful. A simple, flat-rate plan is almost always easier to predict and manage.

The right Copilot alternatives should adapt to you, not the other way around

The thing about powerful, general AI like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT is that they often expect you to bend to their will. You end up changing how you work just to accommodate the tool, spending half your day copy-pasting info and double-checking everything. It kind of defeats the purpose.

For specific jobs like customer support and managing internal knowledge, a dedicated platform gives you the control and seamless integration you need to actually make a difference. Choosing the right Copilot alternative is about finding a tool that understands your business and helps you work better, on your own terms.

Ready to see what an AI assistant built for real workflows can do? With eesel AI, you can connect your help desk and knowledge sources and run a full simulation on your past tickets in about 10 minutes. Start your risk-free trial today.