An AI tool or custom AI: what does your business need?
A ChatGPT or Copilot licence helps an employee work faster. Custom AI carries out a step in your own systems. When each one fits, and the middle route in between.
Published
An AI tool such as ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft Copilot helps an employee who is doing the work themselves: writing an email, summarising a document, looking something up. Custom AI does something else: it carries out a step in your own systems, even with nobody at the screen, such as taking a phone call and booking the appointment. They are two answers to two different questions. This comparison shows which question you have, and where the middle route lies.
Side by side
Who does the work
- Off-the-shelf AI tool
- An employee, with the tool as help
- Custom AI
- The application, with a person checking where a mistake is expensive
Where it runs
- Off-the-shelf AI tool
- In the tool, or in Word, Outlook and Teams
- Custom AI
- In your own systems: phone, CRM, calendar, administration
What it costs
- Off-the-shelf AI tool
- A fixed amount per user per month
- Custom AI
- A project, then maintenance; a Sprint starts at 999 euros
How fast you start
- Off-the-shelf AI tool
- Today
- Custom AI
- After a defined first step
What you can review
- Off-the-shelf AI tool
- What the employee did with it
- Custom AI
- A log of every step, with the source
| Off-the-shelf AI tool | Custom AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Who does the work | An employee, with the tool as help | The application, with a person checking where a mistake is expensive |
| Where it runs | In the tool, or in Word, Outlook and Teams | In your own systems: phone, CRM, calendar, administration |
| What it costs | A fixed amount per user per month | A project, then maintenance; a Sprint starts at 999 euros |
| How fast you start | Today | After a defined first step |
| What you can review | What the employee did with it | A log of every step, with the source |
When an AI tool is enough
- The work is writing, summarising or searching, and someone is always involved.
- The input differs every time and the result passes through a person.
- You want to gain experience before having something built.
When custom AI pays off
- The work comes back every day in large numbers, such as phone calls, incoming requests or reports.
- After the AI step something has to happen in your systems: book an appointment, update a CRM field, prepare a draft.
- You want to set per step what the AI may and may not do, and review what it did.
- A mistake is expensive, so a person must check at a fixed point.
The middle route: a tool with connections
The business plans can connect to more and more. ChatGPT Business connects to Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and more; Claude Team to Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, GitHub, Microsoft 365 and Slack. That lets an employee pull information from those sources without copying and pasting. It covers a lot of searching. What it does not cover: a step that has to happen on its own and at a fixed moment, in a system without a standard connection.
Examples of custom AI from our own work
- AI telephony: answers calls and then carries out the action in your systems, handing over to a person where that helps better.
- Appraisal Copilot: drafts text per report field from the appraiser's recording, with the source fragment beside it.
- Company Brain: answers from a company's own knowledge, with the source, or a note that it does not know.
When each one fits
- Choose an AI tool if your team wants to write, summarise and search faster, and a person always handles the result. Start there; it is the cheapest step.
- Choose custom AI if a task comes back daily in volume and the next step must happen in your own systems. How such a project runs is on AI agent development.
- Often it is both: the team works with a tool, and for the one process that costs the most time you build something custom. The same trade-off for ordinary software is in build or buy.
Frequently asked
Is custom AI more expensive than an AI tool?
At first, yes: a tool costs an amount per user per month, custom work a project. A Sprint starts at 999 euros for one defined result. Whether it pays off depends on how much work that one step costs today.
Can I build an agent myself with ChatGPT or Claude?
For simple tasks inside the tool, yes, for example with your own instructions and connections. Once the step has to happen on its own in your own systems, with rules, a log and review, that is building work.
Which AI tool suits my team?
That depends on where your work lives. See ChatGPT, Claude or Copilot for a comparison and a way to choose.
Where do I start?
With one process that comes back every week and costs the most time today. The free business scan shows where manual work can disappear in your company, without an appointment.
Sources
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