Is a streamlined life a well-lived one? It depends on what you’re optimizing.
Time spent with family and friends? Volunteering? Exploring a hobby? Savor every moment.
Time spent sending work emails? Summarizing meetings? Building presentations? Outsource them ASAP!
Since the debut of ChatGPT, professionals have been able to turn their fantasies about offloading mundane and routine tasks into a reality. Yet as the generative AI tools on the market proliferated, some people have become overwhelmed. In fact, a survey conducted by the American Management Association found that 57% of respondents “feel behind in keeping up with AI.”
As an MSP, we’ve already spent countless hours road-testing AI tools to help our business and our clients innovate, streamline workflows, enhance productivity, and automate repeated tasks with ease. So, we’ve seen the good, bad, and everything in between.
With that in mind, here’s our breakdown of a few AI personal assistants – ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot – as well as a general rule of thumb when using this technology.
General Benefits of AI
Soon, we’ll see AI agent-powered personal assistants that can automatically handle a variety of workplace tasks. But for now, artificial intelligence tools are either broad but require heavy prompting or narrow but fairly autonomous.
Of the major AI assistants, there are some universal benefits:
- Summarization: Condensing content and highlighting key takeaways is what artificial intelligence does best. The large language models (LLMs) that fuel generative AI are adept at parsing text for the most relevant points. Though there have been some hiccups (look at Apple Intelligence for funny examples), most thrive with this function.
- Content Generation: When it comes to creating cut-and-dry content, most generative AI tools can deliver. They are good at creating email sequences, offer letters, sell sheets, product descriptions, and other business materials. They’ll likely require some editing and fine-tuning, but generative AI offers an excellent starting point.
As the technology evolves, we expect the average capability to increase across the range of AI platforms.
ChatGPT (OpenAI)
For most people, ChatGPT is the name brand that has become a shorthand for AI itself. It’s the Google to Bing or the Oreos to Hydrox cookies (Google that one!). Though the free version has exceptional capabilities, the paid account elevates the experience and delivers uninterrupted access to GPT-4o.
From our experience, this is when ChatGPT is the most beneficial:
- Writing and Debugging Code – Want to accelerate your coding process? ChatGPT is skilled at writing functional lines of code, if given the right prompts. You can even train different GPTs to handle different stages of the development lifecycle.
- DALL-E Image Generator – Outside of text generation, this is probably the OpenAI function most people know best. Since its inception, the quality of the images has increased significantly, especially in its realism and detail. It’s perfect for creating illustrations or pictures for presentations or websites.
- Video Generation – Sora, the video generation tool created by OpenAI, is truly impressive. It can produce realistic looking videos or animations within minutes of asking your query. Plus, you can refine and fine-tune the video output until you get exactly what you want.
Gemini (Google)
For Android users, Gemini is becoming a natural extension of their mobile experience. Making AI feel less like a separate tool and more like an invisible layer of intelligence woven into your daily digital interactions is the primary advantage of this tool.
Here are the use cases where Gemini stands out:
- Deep Research – Need to dive deep into a complex topic? Gemini’s Deep Research compiles comprehensive information by actively searching multiple sources, organizing findings into a cohesive report with citations. It’s perfect for due diligence or competitive analysis, synthesizing information into indispensable reports.
- AI in Google Meet – AI-powered video conferencing tools are on the rise, but Gemini offers additional layers of value. Certain Gemini add-ons allow you to improve video quality, enhance sound, simulate professional lighting, and translate audio live in 65+ languages. Plus, it integrates into other Google tools, allowing you to send call notes directly to Google Docs.
- Gemini in Google SecOps – Looking to strengthen your cybersecurity posture? Gemini integrates with Google’s security operations, offering AI-powered threat detection and analysis. It monitors security logs in real-time, identifies vulnerabilities, and enables teams to investigate incidents using natural language queries instead of complex security languages—making enterprise-grade protection accessible to more organizations.
Microsoft Copilot
If your business is committed to the Microsoft tech stack, then incorporating Microsoft Copilot into your repertoire is a no-brainer. What started off as a conversational chatbot has grown into an impressive AI personal assistant that elevates productivity and performance across your organization. For those using Microsoft 365, there’s the added bonus of using in-house data as a source of truth.
Here are a few more advantages of using Microsoft Copilot:
- Document Generation – Since Copilot is integrated within the Microsoft 365 suite, it’s exceptional at creating professional documents from scratch. Need a project proposal, contract, or marketing plan? Just describe what you need, and Copilot will draft the document using your company’s templates, branding, and writing style.
- Power BI – Creating reports and visualizing data in Power BI is significantly easier when using Copilot. This tool can save hours when you’re building reports and report pages, helping you to highlight insights faster and with greater ease. Better yet, Copilot can make recommendations about data you might be overlooking, improving your decision-making processes.
- Teams Meeting Assistant – Missed an important meeting? Copilot can provide detailed summaries, action items, and key decisions from Teams calls—even identifying who said what. It can even join meetings and take notes in real-time, letting you focus on the conversation instead of documentation.
A Final Thought about AI Personal Assistants
Though these are the big three AI personal assistants now, that doesn’t mean there aren’t others that are suited for your business. Perplexity, which is great for AI-powered web searches, is another contender worth exploring, and you probably have other favorites on your radar.
That said, there is some caution you should take with all these AI personal assistants:
- Watch for Hallucinations – Though AI results have significantly improved in a few short years, these tools still hallucinate information sometimes. That’s why you need to evaluate and verify any AI output, especially when key business decisions or external messages are on the line.
- Train Your People to Prompt – AI results rely on both quality training data and precise prompts. Difficult while staff are still in the process of building their skills with prompt engineering. Recommendation would be to hold some training sessions with your IT support partner or provide some resources and time for them to experiment. Road testing these tools and encouraging iteration is essential.
Most importantly, remember that the goal isn’t just efficiency for efficiency’s sake—it’s about reclaiming time to invest in what truly matters – inside and outside the office.
Are you using the right AI assistants for your business applications? Reach out and we can walk you through the best use cases for your business.
Related Articles
Why You Need a Business VPN Strategy in 2025
What Is the Difference Between EDR and MDR in Your Cybersecurity Solutions?4 ATS Implementation Mistakes That Hurt Staffing Firms (And How Integration Partners Can Fix Them)