The 9 Best Microsoft Copilot Alternatives in 2026

The best Microsoft Copilot alternatives in 2026 are ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Glean, Caddi, Harvey, CoCounsel Legal, Perplexity Enterprise and Box AI. Pick ChatGPT or Claude for a standalone assistant, Gemini if you run Google Workspace, and Glean for search across many apps. Law firms add Harvey or CoCounsel for legal work. If what you wanted from Copilot was work that runs across Clio, NetDocuments or Wealthbox on its own, Caddi is the workflow layer (see Caddi vs Copilot: full comparison).

Why firms look for a Copilot alternative

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a strong choice for a firm that lives in Word, Outlook and Teams. The reasons firms look elsewhere are usually about fit rather than capability.

• It is an add-on to a licence you already pay for. Microsoft lists Copilot at $30 per user per month paid yearly, or $31.50 paid monthly with an annual commitment, and it requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 plan (Microsoft pricing). For a firm deciding seat by seat, that is a separate line from the standalone assistants.
• Not every firm runs on Microsoft 365. Firms on Google Workspace get Gemini in their plan, and firms that use both want an assistant that is not tied to either.
• Legal and industry depth. Copilot is horizontal. Law firms that want research grounded in a citator, or review tuned to legal documents, look at legal-specific tools.
• Model and workspace choice. Some teams prefer a particular model for writing or reasoning, or want projects and shared assistants outside the Office apps.
• Assist is not the same as run. Copilot helps a person in the app they are in. Firms that hoped it would move data between their practice management system, document management system and CRM on its own find that is a different job. We map where the connections stop in what Copilot and Claude can't connect to.

First: which Copilot are you replacing?

"Copilot" covers several Microsoft products, and the right alternative depends on which one you mean.

• Microsoft 365 Copilot is the assistant inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Its alternatives are the other assistants on this list.
• Copilot Studio is where makers build custom agents. Microsoft sells it as tenant-wide capacity, with packs of 25,000 Copilot Credits at $200 per pack per month, or pay-as-you-go (Copilot Studio pricing).
• Power Automate builds cloud flows and desktop automation. Premium is $15 per user per month paid yearly, and Process is $150 per bot per month paid yearly (Power Automate pricing). If this is the one you are replacing, see our Power Automate alternatives.

This guide is mainly about the first: the assistant. Caddi appears because many firms buy Copilot hoping it will also do the second and third jobs, running multi-step work across their systems.

How we picked

We compared each tool on what decides whether it earns its seat at a professional-services firm: where it works (inside Office, in its own app, or in the background), who uses it, the pricing model and whether a price is published, what the vendor says about training on and retaining your data, which of the systems law firms and RIAs run it can reach (Microsoft 365, Clio, NetDocuments, iManage, Salesforce, Wealthbox, Box), and what record it keeps. Prices and data statements were read from each vendor's own pages in September 2026. Certifications are listed as the vendor states them. The wider category is covered in our guide to AI agents.

Disclosure: Caddi makes one of the tools on this list. We include it where it fits and say where it does not.

Microsoft Copilot alternatives compared

The 9 best Microsoft Copilot alternatives in 2026

01

1. ChatGPT

Best for

A flexible standalone assistant for drafting, analysis and shared custom GPTs

Pricing

Business standard seat $20/user/mo billed annually ($25 monthly), premium seat $100; Enterprise via sales (OpenAI pricing)

Choose ChatGPT if you want one assistant that works the same whether your firm is on Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or both.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Business plan includes SAML SSO, MFA and centralised admin
• OpenAI states no training on business data by default
• Connects to Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and Slack

Trade-offs

• A separate workspace from Word and Outlook
• Business is for teams of 2 to 200; larger firms move to Enterprise

Caddi vs. ChatGPT

02

2. Claude

Best for

Reading and drafting against long documents

Pricing

Team standard seat $20/seat/mo billed annually ($25 monthly), premium seat $100; Enterprise $20/seat/mo billed annually plus usage (Claude pricing, Enterprise)

Choose Claude if your heaviest use is working through contracts, transcripts and long email chains, and you want Enterprise controls such as audit logs and retention settings.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Strong at long uploads and multi-document questions
• Enterprise adds SCIM, audit logs and custom data retention
• Enterprise lists connectors for Microsoft 365, Gmail and Google Drive

Trade-offs

• Separate from the Office apps your team works in
• Enterprise usage cost scales with model and task, so it takes modelling

Caddi vs. Claude

03

3. Google Gemini

Best for

Firms that run on Google Workspace

Pricing

Included in Workspace plans; Business Standard $14/user/mo on flexible billing, less annually (Google Workspace pricing)

Choose Google Gemini if your email and documents already live in Google Workspace, so Gemini is to you what Copilot is to a Microsoft firm.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Built into Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive and Meet
• No separate assistant licence on Standard and Plus plans
• Google says Workspace does not use customer data for training without permission

Trade-offs

• Only an alternative if your firm is on Google Workspace
• Starter plan has limited Gemini access

04

4. Glean

Best for

Enterprise search and an assistant across many connected apps

Pricing

Quote-based (Glean pricing)

Choose Glean if your people lose time finding documents and answers spread across many systems, not just Microsoft 365.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Search and answers across the apps a firm connects
• Vendor-stated SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001
• Not tied to one productivity suite

Trade-offs

• Enterprise sales process; no published price
• Most useful at a scale where finding information is the problem

05

5. Caddi

Best for regulated ops

Best for

Back-office workflows that run across Clio, NetDocuments, iManage, Wealthbox and Microsoft 365

Pricing

Free Individual plan; Team $250 per user per month; Business $6,500 per month (pricing)

Choose something else if what you want is help writing, summarising or searching. Keep Copilot, or pick one of the assistants above; Caddi works alongside them.

Strengths and trade-offs4 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Discover finds the repetitive work in the tools you already use
• Automate: the ops person shows the workflow once and Caddi builds it as deterministic code, no IT project
• Govern: every run is logged, reviewable and traceable to source
• Live connectors for Clio, NetDocuments, iManage, Wealthbox, Salesforce and Microsoft 365

Trade-offs

• Not a chat assistant for drafting or analysis
• Built for professional-services back offices, not general-purpose chat

Caddi vs. Microsoft 365 Copilot: full comparison

06

6. Harvey AI

Best for

Legal drafting, review and research at law firms and legal teams

Pricing

Quote-based; request a demo (Harvey)

Choose Harvey AI if your lawyers want an assistant built for legal work rather than a general one.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Built for legal and professional services work
• Vault for storing and bulk-analysing legal documents
• Vendor-stated SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 27701

Trade-offs

• No published price
• Aimed at the legal work itself, not firm operations

Caddi vs. Harvey AIHarvey alternatives

07

7. CoCounsel Legal

Best for

Research and drafting grounded in Westlaw and Practical Law

Pricing

Quote-based; plans by firm size (Thomson Reuters)

Choose CoCounsel Legal if research is the main use case and you want answers tied to a legal research platform rather than a general model.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Reasons from Westlaw and Practical Law content, per Thomson Reuters
• Drafting with linked citations
• Document analysis across large sets

Trade-offs

• Most valuable to firms already on Westlaw
• Legal work only; not a firm-wide assistant

08

8. Perplexity Enterprise

Best for

Research across the web, files and apps with cited sources

Pricing

Enterprise Pro $34/seat/mo billed annually; Enterprise Max $271 (Perplexity pricing)

Choose Perplexity Enterprise if your team mostly researches markets, companies and regulations and wants to see every source.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Answers come with source citations
• Vendor states "guaranteed no training on your data"
• SSO and vendor-stated SOC 2 Type II

Trade-offs

• Research-first, lighter on drafting inside documents
• Separate from the Office apps

09

9. Box AI

Best for

AI questions and summaries over documents already stored in Box

Pricing

Included in Box business plans; per-user prices on Box's pricing page

Choose Box AI if your firm's documents live in Box rather than SharePoint, and you want AI next to them.

Strengths and trade-offs3 strengths · 2 trade-offs

Strengths

• Works where the documents already live
• Higher tiers add Box agents and more AI units
• No separate assistant to roll out

Trade-offs

• Only covers content stored in Box
• Not a general-purpose assistant

Microsoft Copilot vs. Caddi

For law firms and RIAs

Generic lists stop at the assistant. For a professional-services firm the question is whether the tool reaches the systems the work actually lives in.

Law firms. Copilot works over what is in Microsoft 365: Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams. Reaching the matter in Clio or the workspace in iManage depends on a connector, and a connector that lets Copilot read a record is not the same as a workflow that updates it on every trigger. See Copilot and iManage, Copilot and NetDocuments and Copilot and Elite 3E for system-by-system detail. A typical workflow: a signed engagement letter comes back through DocuSign, the matter is opened in Clio, and the letter is filed to NetDocuments. For the lawyers themselves, our comparison of ChatGPT vs Claude vs Copilot for lawyers covers plans and data terms. See also AI automation for law firms.

RIAs. The same pattern shows up in client service: a meeting note from Jump or Zocks becomes tasks and a household update in Wealthbox or Salesforce. Copilot can draft the follow-up email; it does not update the CRM on every meeting. See Copilot and your CRM and AI automation for RIAs.

Moving off Copilot, or adding to it

Most firms do not rip Copilot out; they change what it is asked to do. Start with an inventory: which teams use it, for what, and which tasks people hoped it would handle and it did not. Drafting and summarising gaps point to a different assistant. Gaps that involve moving data between systems point to workflow automation. Check your Microsoft agreement for renewal dates and seat minimums before you decide.

If you are not sure which work is worth automating, Caddi Discover reads the tools your team already uses and ranks the repetitive work by the hours it takes, so the list starts from evidence. Caddi also connects to Microsoft 365, so it works alongside Copilot rather than replacing your suite.

Related comparisons

• Caddi vs ChatGPT
• Caddi vs Claude
• Caddi vs Harvey
• Is Copilot reliable for law firms?
• Legal AI tools for law firms