The best AI tools for small businesses
Every week there's a new "AI tool every business needs" list, and half of them are things you'll never open twice. So here's mine: six tools I'd actually stand behind, with real prices and the catches nobody mentions.
Where it hurts
The lists are useless because they're organised by product, not by problem. You don't wake up wanting "an AI tool". You wake up with a pile of receipts, an email you've been dodging, an hour of voice notes from site, and a quote that needs writing before someone else gets the job.
Then there's the free-tier trap. Loads of tools are free until you actually rely on them, at which point the useful bit sits behind a monthly fee you didn't budget for. And several quietly train on whatever you paste in unless you find the right setting, which matters a lot when "whatever you paste in" is your customers' details.
So here's my honest shortlist, prices checked July 2026. For writing, replies and summarising, one general assistant is plenty: ChatGPT (decent free tier; Plus is £20 a month) or Claude (free tier; Pro is £18 a month). ChatGPT uses your chats to train its models unless you switch that off in the settings; Claude asks you to choose and only trains on your chats if you agreed, so it's worth checking what you picked. Either way, that's the first setting I'd visit. If your business already runs on Microsoft 365, Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost, and the full Copilot add-on is £16.10 a user a month before VAT; either way your files stay inside your own Microsoft account rather than feeding anyone's model.
For the doing rather than the writing: Otter.ai turns meetings and rambling voice notes into text (300 free minutes a month; Pro is about $17, billed in dollars), but it trains on de-identified recordings by default, so that setting goes off on day one. Make is the glue that connects the software you already pay for (1,000 free steps a month, then from about $9); it doesn't train on anything, though every app you wire in sees the data passing through. And Canva Pro (£100 a year) covers social posts and flyers, with one catch: your designs can help train its AI unless you opt out in its privacy settings.
What I'd build
I'd pick from that list by the jobs you actually do, then set up only the two or three that pay off. That means one assistant primed with your tone so drafts sound like you, not like a press release; Otter wired up so an hour of voice notes lands as a tidy job record; Make quietly moving the output into the software you already pay for. I'd write down every free-tier limit before it bites and go through each tool's data settings with you, turning off anything that trains on what you paste in. And to be clear about what I won't set up: no customer-facing chatbots and no AI phone answering. I don't build those, because they tend to annoy the exact customers you're trying to keep.
What changes
- Six named tools with real prices, chosen by the jobs you actually do
- Two or three set up properly instead of ten half-used logins
- Every free-tier limit written down before it bites
- Training settings switched off so customer details don't feed anyone's model
Facts on this page last checked 12 July 2026, against chatgpt.com, claude.com, microsoft.com, otter.ai, make.com, canva.com, help.openai.com, anthropic.com.
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