By now somebody has told you that your business needs AI. Perhaps it was your accountant, who swears by ChatGPT. Perhaps your IT support company, which wants you on Copilot because the office already runs on Microsoft 365. Perhaps your daughter, home from university, who does everything in Claude. The advice is confident, contradictory, and rarely comes with prices attached — and the three subscription pages read like the same brochure with different logos.

This column has now spent seven weeks using these tools on real finance work — spreadsheets, cash flow forecasts, receipts, dashboards, slides, and last week an agent that drafts variance commentary. So this week, the comparison, with one caveat up front: all three are good, all three are improving quickly, and the right answer depends far more on how your office already works than on any league table. Prices and features below were checked the week of writing, and they change often — treat them as a snapshot, not scripture.

The most useful question is not “which AI is smartest?” but “where does my work alreadyhappen?” (Branded graphic by PGH Consulting, LLC)