The 10 Best AI Agents for Business 2025: Complete Comparison

The enterprise AI Agents market has exploded in 2025. Over 200 platforms promise to revolutionise your customer service, automate sales, or transform operations. 68% of SMEs evaluating AI solutions report paralysis from excessive options, according to Gartner Q1 2025 study. This comparison eliminates the noise and presents the 10 AI Agents with proven track record in European companies.

I have personally evaluated each platform in real implementations during 2024-2025. This analysis is not based on commercial demos or marketing whitepapers, but on direct experience supervising deployments in SMEs of 10 to 500 employees in diverse sectors: retail, professional services, manufacturing, and technology.

Evaluation Methodology: 7 Objective Criteria

Each platform has been evaluated through a 7-dimension framework with 1-10 scoring. The aggregate score is not simple average; we weight according to importance for European SMEs based on feedback from 40+ supervised implementations.

1. Functionality (Weight: 25%): Agent core capabilities, configuration flexibility, multi-channel support (web chat, WhatsApp, email, Teams), and advanced features (CRM integration, personalisation, human handoff, analytics). Platforms offering only basic chatbot score low; those allowing complex workflows and multi-turn conversations score high.

2. Ease of Use (Weight: 20%): Learning curve for teams without technical background, admin panel UI/UX quality, template and wizard availability, and time-to-first-functional-agent. I measure real time taken to configure a basic functional agent from scratch: best platforms achieve this in <2 hours; worst require days of training.

3. Integrations (Weight: 15%): Pre-built connectors with popular CRMs (Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive), support platforms (Zendesk, Intercom), productivity tools (Slack, Teams, Gmail), and payment systems. I also value public API quality for custom integrations. Closed platforms without APIs score low.

4. Pricing (Weight: 15%): Cost-value ratio, pricing transparency, plan flexibility (pay-as-you-go vs annual commitments), and absence of hidden costs (setup fees, mandatory professional services, artificial limits forcing upgrades). I compare cost for typical use case: SME of 50 employees, 500 interactions/month.

5. Technical Support (Weight: 10%): Support availability in English, response speed (documented SLAs), documentation and knowledge base quality, and active community. SMEs without large technical teams critically depend on good support; platforms with English-only support or without clear SLAs score low.

6. Security and Compliance (Weight: 10%): Validated GDPR compliance, certifications (ISO 27001, SOC 2), data residency in Europe, data retention policies, and granular access controls. In 2025, with European AI Act in force, this is non-negotiable. Platforms without explicit GDPR compliance are disqualified.

7. Scalability (Weight: 5%): Capacity to handle volume growth without performance degradation or prohibitive price jumps, concurrency limits, and clear SMB to Enterprise upgrade path. Lower weight because for most SMEs it is not immediate constraint, but matters for 2-3 year projection.

Final scores are: Salesforce Agentforce 8.7/10, Intercom Fin AI 8.4/10, Zendesk AI Agent 8.2/10, HubSpot AI Agent 7.9/10, Drift Conversational AI 7.6/10, Microsoft Copilot Studio 8.1/10, Notion AI 7.3/10, GitHub Copilot 8.9/10 (specific use case), Custom Agents (Claude/GPT-4) 8.5/10, and industry-specific solutions 7.8/10 average.

Category 1: Customer Service Agents

#1 Salesforce Agentforce (Score: 8.7/10)

Agentforce is the evolution of Salesforce Einstein GPT, launched in September 2024. It is undoubtedly the most complete enterprise AI Agent on the market for companies already operating in Salesforce ecosystem. Native integration with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud eliminates implementation friction.

Outstanding capabilities: Natural language processing in 30+ languages including European languages with high quality, capacity to execute complex actions (create cases, update opportunities, process returns) without human intervention, and predictive analytics on query trends. The "Topics" system allows training the agent through examples, not code, making it accessible for operations teams.

The killer feature is "intelligent handoff": the agent not only escalates to human when it cannot resolve, but transfers complete context (conversation history, customer data from CRM, actions already executed) to human agent, eliminating frustrating "information repetition" that ruins experience in 68% of traditional chatbots.

Pricing: From £1,600/month per pack of 1,000 conversations, with Service Cloud users included. One-time setup fee of £4,000-£8,000 depending on customisation complexity. For SME of 50 employees with 500 interactions/month, effective cost is £960-£1,200/month in first year.

Pros: Perfect integration with Salesforce (zero development to sync data), superior NLP quality in European languages, enterprise-grade 24/7 support, and aggressive product roadmap (quarterly updates with new capabilities).

Cons: Requires existing Salesforce licenses (not standalone), steep learning curve for advanced configurations, and prohibitive pricing for companies not already in Salesforce ecosystem. Does not make economic sense if you do not use Salesforce CRM.

Ideal for: Mid-sized and large companies (50+ employees) already using Salesforce, with customer service volume >300 interactions/month, and budget for enterprise solution. Optimal use case: omnichannel customer service with need for real-time customer data access.

#2 Intercom Fin AI Agent (Score: 8.4/10)

Fin is Intercom's AI Agent, launched in July 2023 and significantly refined during 2024. Unlike Agentforce which requires Salesforce ecosystem, Fin works standalone or integrated with your existing CRM. It is especially strong in SaaS and tech companies.

Outstanding capabilities: Automatic training from your existing knowledge base (help center articles, documentation, FAQs), without needing to manually structure Q&As. The accuracy rate in responses is 87% according to independent G2 benchmark, superior to 79% market average. Fin detects confidence in its responses: if not sure, escalates to human instead of inventing incorrect response.

The "Custom Answers" functionality allows support teams to adjust agent responses directly from inbox when they detect errors, without IT intervention. This feedback loop accelerates continuous improvement without technical dependencies.

Pricing: From £0.80 per successful resolution (pay-per-resolution model), with monthly minimum of £400. For 200 resolutions/month, cost is £400 fixed. For 1,000 resolutions/month, cost is £800. Transparent and predictable pricing, without setup fees or mandatory annual commitments.

Pros: Extremely fast time-to-value (basic agent functional in <90 minutes), pay-per-resolution model aligns incentives (you only pay when it works), modern and intuitive UI, and native multichannel support (web, email, Messenger, WhatsApp).

Cons: Limited workflow automation capabilities vs Agentforce (cannot execute complex actions in external systems without custom development), English works well but not as polished as native English, and less deep analytics than enterprise competitors.

Ideal for: Technology startups and scale-ups (10-100 employees), SaaS companies with already structured digital knowledge base, and teams prioritising speed-to-market over extreme customisation. Optimal use case: technical support ticket deflection level 1.

#3 Zendesk AI Agent (Score: 8.2/10)

Zendesk has integrated AI Agent capabilities deeply into its customer service platform during 2024. It is not a separate product, but native features in Zendesk Suite. If you already use Zendesk for ticketing, activating AI Agent is natural extension.

Outstanding capabilities: Automatic responses in email tickets besides chat (many competitors only do chat), intelligent macros suggesting responses to human agents based on ticket content, and intelligent routing directing complex tickets to human agent with specific expertise.

The differential feature is "intelligent triage": AI analyses incoming ticket, extracts intent, identifies urgency and sentiment, and automatically categorises it before assigning. This reduces first response time by average 64% according to Zendesk Benchmark 2024 data.

Pricing: Included in Zendesk Suite Professional (from £72/agent/month) with 500 AI responses/month limit. For higher volume, Zendesk Suite Enterprise (£136/agent/month) with unlimited AI responses. For team of 5 human agents + AI Agent, cost is £360-£680/month.

Pros: If you already use Zendesk, activation is trivial (does not require new platform), low incremental cost vs hiring separate platform, and mature ecosystem of integrations with 1,200+ apps in marketplace.

Cons: AI quality inferior to Intercom Fin or Agentforce in complex tasks (multi-turn conversations, extensive context), limited to Zendesk ecosystem (does not work standalone), and less flexible chat widget visual customisation than competitors.

Ideal for: Companies already using Zendesk Support (migration not justifiable only for AI), customer service teams of 3-20 people, and use cases focused on human agent efficiency more than total deflection. Optimal use case: automatic triage and suggested responses for human agents.

Category 2: Sales & Marketing Agents

#4 HubSpot AI Agent (Score: 7.9/10)

HubSpot launched its "ChatSpot" (now renamed HubSpot AI Agent) in Q4 2023, integrating conversational AI capabilities into its CRM and Marketing Hub. Similar to Agentforce with Salesforce, value is in ecosystem integration with HubSpot.

Outstanding capabilities: Automatic lead qualification through web chat conversations, data capture (email, company, need) without explicit forms, and intelligent routing to appropriate salesperson according to territory, product, or industry. Integrates with HubSpot workflows to trigger automatic email nurturing sequences based on bot conversation.

The "meeting booking" functionality allows the agent to schedule meetings directly consulting salesperson availability in connected calendars (Google, Outlook), without human intervention. This reduces friction of lead to meeting conversion from 3-5 touches to 1 single conversation.

Pricing: Included in HubSpot Marketing Hub Professional (from £610/month for 2,000 contacts) and Sales Hub Professional (from £345/month for 5 users). No separate cost, but requires HubSpot hub subscription. For SME using both hubs, base cost is £955/month.

Pros: Excellent for B2B lead generation and qualification, perfect integration with HubSpot CRM (conversation data automatically syncs to contact), and simple setup for marketing teams without technical skills.

Cons: Limited customer service capabilities (optimised for pre-sale, not post-sale), requires expensive HubSpot subscription (not justifiable only for AI Agent), and less flexible conversational logic customisation than specialised platforms.

Ideal for: B2B companies with consultative sales cycles, marketing teams already using HubSpot, and use cases focused on top-of-funnel (lead gen, qualification). Optimal use case: 24/7 qualification of web leads with automatic demo booking.

#5 Drift Conversational AI (Score: 7.6/10)

Drift is pioneer in "conversational marketing" since 2016, and its AI Agent platform is specifically designed for revenue teams. It is not support chatbot, it is sales tool disguised as chat.

Outstanding capabilities: Web visitor identification (through reverse IP lookup and cookies) to personalise conversation according to industry, company size, or previous visits. Sophisticated playbooks allowing conditional logic: "If visitor is from company >500 employees AND has visited pricing page 2+ times, offer demo with Account Executive; if not, offer free trial".

Integration with sales engagement platforms (Outreach, Salesloft) allows bot conversations to automatically trigger multichannel follow-up sequences (email + LinkedIn + call) if lead does not convert immediately.

Pricing: From £2,000/month in Premium plan for full AI Agent functionalities, with setup fee of £4,000. Advanced plan from £960/month with limited capabilities. For complete use case, minimum budget is £2,000+/month.

Pros: Demonstrable ROI in B2B companies with average ticket >£4,000 (multiple clients report 3-5x more meetings scheduled), targeting and personalisation sophistication superior to competitors, and detailed analytics of performance by segment.

Cons: Prohibitive pricing for small SMEs (<50 employees), pronounced learning curve to leverage advanced features, and exclusively focused on sales (useless for customer service). Additionally, some users report excessive bot aggressiveness harming brand experience.

Ideal for: B2B companies with ACV >£8,000, aligned sales & marketing teams (minimum 3-5 people), and maturity in martech stack (already use CRM, marketing automation, sales engagement). Optimal use case: converting high-intent web traffic into qualified pipeline.

Category 3: Productivity Agents

#6 Microsoft Copilot Studio (Score: 8.1/10)

Copilot Studio (formerly Power Virtual Agents) is Microsoft's platform to build custom AI Agents integrated into Microsoft 365 ecosystem. If your company lives in Teams, Outlook, and SharePoint, Copilot Studio is natural option.

Outstanding capabilities: Low-code agent construction with drag-and-drop of conversational nodes, native integration with Microsoft Dataverse to access enterprise data, and deployment on multiple surfaces (Teams, web, mobile app) from single code base. Agents can invoke Power Automate flows, allowing complex automation (e.g., agent processing holiday request consulting SharePoint availability, validating with manager via Teams, and updating HR system).

Competitive advantage is access to Microsoft Graph: your agent can query emails, calendars, documents, and data from your entire Microsoft 365 organisation with native authentication and permissions, without developing custom integrations.

Pricing: Included in some Microsoft 365 licenses (E3, E5) with 200 sessions/month limit. For higher volume, pricing based on "sessions": pack of 1,000 sessions from £130/month. Session = complete user-agent interaction (not per message). For 500 interactions/month, cost is £65-£130/month, very competitive.

Pros: Extremely competitive pricing for companies already in Microsoft 365, deep integration with Microsoft ecosystem (Teams, SharePoint, Dynamics), and capacity to invoke Azure Cognitive Services for advanced use cases (OCR, speech-to-text, translation).

Cons: Builder UX less polished than competitors like Intercom, requires Power Platform knowledge to leverage advanced capabilities (technical barrier for non-IT teams), and limitations in external channels (difficult to integrate with WhatsApp, Messenger, or non-Microsoft CRMs).

Ideal for: Mid-large companies (50+ employees) with strong investment in Microsoft 365, internal use cases (HR bots, IT helpdesk, knowledge management), and teams with at least one "citizen developer" familiar with Power Platform. Optimal use case: internal process automation and employee self-service.

#7 Notion AI (Score: 7.3/10)

Notion AI is not AI Agent in traditional chatbot conversational sense, but assistant integrated into Notion workspace. I include it because multiple clients use it as internal "knowledge agent" with excellent results.

Outstanding capabilities: Capacity to answer questions querying your entire knowledge base in Notion (wikis, documentation, meeting notes, projects), automatic generation of summaries of long documents, and writing assistance (complete texts, improve drafting, translate).

The killer use case I have seen is "internal knowledge agent": employees ask in natural language about processes, policies, or historical project information, and Notion AI searches entire workspace and synthesises response with links to source documents. This is game-changer for onboarding and reducing "where is X documented?" that consumes 10-15% of time in mid-sized companies.

Pricing: £8/user/month as add-on to Notion subscription (Plus from £8/user/month, Business from £14/user/month). For team of 20 people, total cost is £160/month in Plus plan + £160/month Notion AI = £320/month total.

Pros: Very accessible pricing for SMEs, zero setup (activate add-on and works immediately), and immediate ROI in productivity of knowledge-intensive teams (consultancies, agencies, tech).

Cons: Not complete conversational AI Agent (cannot execute actions, only query and generate text), limited to content in Notion (does not integrate with other systems), and response quality depends totally on documentation quality in Notion (garbage in, garbage out).

Ideal for: Companies already using Notion extensively as wiki and knowledge base (minimum 70% of critical documentation in Notion), teams of 10-100 people, and internal knowledge management use cases. Optimal use case: internal documentation assistant and employee onboarding.

Category 4: Development Agents

#8 GitHub Copilot (Score: 8.9/10 - Specific Use Case)

GitHub Copilot is AI Agent for developers, not for customer service or sales. I include it because in tech companies, developer productivity is critical, and Copilot has demonstrated ROI higher than any other AI Agent in its category.

Outstanding capabilities: Intelligent code autocompletion based on file context and comments, complete function generation from natural language description, and automatic unit test suggestions. Supports 30+ programming languages with excellent quality in JavaScript, Python, TypeScript, Java, and Go.

Independent studies (MIT, GitHub, McKinsey) show productivity increase of 35-55% in development tasks measured in time to complete features. Junior developers benefit more than seniors (61% vs 39% increase), because Copilot acts as junior mentor.

Pricing: £8/user/month for individual, £15/user/month for Business (with centralised management and company policies). For team of 10 developers, cost is £150/month. ROI is trivial: if each developer saves 5 hours/month valued at £40/hour, generates £2,000/month value for £150 cost.

Pros: Indisputable ROI for development teams, trivial adoption (plugin in VS Code, JetBrains, etc), and continuous model improvement (suggestion quality has improved 40% from 2023 to 2025).

Cons: Dependency risk (developers using Copilot 6+ months report difficulty programming without it), concerns about IP and licensing of generated code (mitigated but not eliminated), and can generate insecure code if developer does not critically review.

Ideal for: Any company with internal development team (does not apply to companies without developers), useful from 1 developer to teams of 100+. Optimal use case: feature development acceleration and reduction of repetitive code tasks.

#9 Custom Agents over Claude/GPT-4 (Score: 8.5/10)

Custom Agents built on Anthropic (Claude) or OpenAI (GPT-4) APIs offer maximum flexibility. Instead of closed SaaS platform, you develop your specific agent using LLMs as core engine.

Outstanding capabilities: Total customisation of behaviour, logic, and integrations, capacity for fine-tuning with your specific data, and complete control over data privacy (you can host on your European infrastructure). Latest versions (Claude 3.5 Sonnet, GPT-4 Turbo) have reasoning capabilities and context window (200K+ tokens) superior to models embedded in SaaS platforms.

The use case where custom agents dominate is when you need very specific business logic, integrations with proprietary legacy systems, or strict compliance (banking, health, legal) that prohibits sending data to third-party SaaS.

Pricing: Pay-per-token variable model. Claude 3.5 Sonnet: $0.003 per 1K input tokens, $0.015 per 1K output tokens. GPT-4 Turbo: $0.01 per 1K input, $0.03 per 1K output. For 1,000 conversations/month of ~500 tokens average each, API cost is £12-£36/month. Add development (£4,000-£20,000 one-time) and maintenance (£400-£1,600/month).

Pros: Infinite flexibility, variable cost aligned with real usage, access to most advanced models before SaaS platforms (which typically lag 6-12 months in adopting new models), and total control over data.

Cons: Requires competent development team (not option for companies without internal technical capacity or budget for dedicated consultant), significant development time (8-16 weeks for MVP vs 1-2 weeks with SaaS), and total responsibility for maintenance, security, and scaling.

Ideal for: Companies with strong technical teams (minimum 1-2 dedicated senior developers), highly specific use cases where generic SaaS does not serve, and budget for custom development (£12,000+ euros). Optimal use case: agents with complex and proprietary business logic, or industry-specific with strict compliance.

Category 5: Industry-Specific Solutions

#10 Industry-Specific Platforms (Score: 7.8/10 Average)

Verticalised AI Agents exist for specific industries that out-of-the-box understand sector terminology, workflows, and compliance. Examples: Ada for e-commerce, HealthTap for health, Flybits for banking, Verint for contact centers.

Outstanding capabilities: Pre-trained with sector knowledge (e.g., pharmacy agent knows medications, interactions, and regulation without manual training), industry-specific integrations (e.g., banking agent integrates with core banking systems), and built-in compliance (e.g., HIPAA-compliant agent for health, PCI-DSS for payments).

Value is in time-to-value: where generic agent requires 4-8 weeks of training with your industry data, vertical agent works decently from day one with minimum configuration.

Pricing: Varies enormously by industry and vendor, typically £1,200-£4,000/month depending on volume. Generally more expensive than horizontal platforms because addressable market is smaller (fewer economies of scale).

Pros: Fastest time-to-value in specific industries, reduces compliance issue risk, and specialised support that understands your business.

Cons: Strong lock-in (difficult to migrate vertical knowledge to another platform), smaller integration ecosystem vs mainstream platforms, and pricing premium not always justified by real differential value.

Ideal for: Companies in regulated or highly specialised industries (health, banking, legal, pharma), where agent domain expertise is critical. Optimal use case: customer service in sectors with complex technical terminology and strict compliance.

Decision Matrix by Use Case

| Use Case | Recommended Option | Alternative | Anti-Recommendation | |----------|-------------------|-------------|---------------------| | B2C Customer Service (E-commerce, Retail) | Intercom Fin AI (8.4) | Zendesk AI (8.2) | Drift (optimised for B2B) | | B2B Customer Service (Professional Services, SaaS) | Salesforce Agentforce (8.7) | Intercom Fin AI (8.4) | HubSpot (pre-sale focused) | | Lead Qualification & Sales (B2B) | Drift Conversational AI (7.6) | HubSpot AI Agent (7.9) | Zendesk (support focused) | | Internal Knowledge Management | Notion AI (7.3) | Microsoft Copilot Studio (8.1) | Intercom (external focused) | | IT Internal Helpdesk | Microsoft Copilot Studio (8.1) | Zendesk AI (8.2) | Drift (sales focused) | | Developer Productivity | GitHub Copilot (8.9) | Custom Claude/GPT-4 (8.5) | None horizontal applies | | Highly Regulated Industries (Banking, Health) | Custom Claude/GPT-4 (8.5) | Industry-Specific (7.8) | Public SaaS without certification | | Multi-Use General Purpose | Salesforce Agentforce (8.7) if using SFDC, else Custom Claude/GPT-4 (8.5) | Microsoft Copilot Studio (8.1) if using M365 | Vertical solutions (little flexible) |

Recommendations by Company Size and Budget

Companies 10-50 Employees (Budget <£1,600/month)

Prioritise solutions with low/no setup cost, pay-as-you-grow pricing, and time-to-value <2 weeks. Best options are:

• First option: Intercom Fin AI (from £400/month pay-per-resolution). Ideal if you do not have enterprise CRM. Setup in days, not weeks.
• Second option: Microsoft Copilot Studio (from £65/month) if already using Microsoft 365. Excellent cost-value ratio for internal use cases.
• Third option: HubSpot AI Agent if already using HubSpot CRM (marginal incremental cost). Not justifiable to hire HubSpot only for agent.

Avoid: Salesforce Agentforce (requires expensive Salesforce ecosystem), Drift (prohibitive pricing for this segment), and Custom Development (you do not have internal technical resources or budget for dedicated consultant).

Companies 50-250 Employees (Budget £1,600-£4,000/month)

This segment has more budget flexibility and needs enterprise-ready solutions that scale. Prioritise platforms with robust support:

• First option: Salesforce Agentforce (from £1,600/month) if using Salesforce CRM. ROI justifies investment at this size.
• Second option: Zendesk AI Agent (from £360/month) if already using Zendesk, or Intercom Fin AI if no legacy platform.
• Third option: Custom Agents over Claude/GPT-4 if you have internal technical team. Higher initial investment but lower recurring cost and maximum flexibility.

Consider: Drift Conversational AI if you are B2B with ACV >£8,000. ROI justifies at this customer profile.

Companies 250+ Employees (Budget >£4,000/month)

At this scale, prioritise enterprise features: security, compliance, SLAs, dedicated support, and deep customisation capacity:

• First option: Salesforce Agentforce with enterprise implementation (£8,000-£24,000 one-time + £4,000+/month recurring). Maximum integration with enterprise stack.
• Second option: Custom Agents over Claude/GPT-4 with in-house development or strategic partner. Total control and lower long-term TCO than enterprise SaaS.
• Third option: Microsoft Copilot Studio if heavily invested in Microsoft ecosystem. Leverage Azure infrastructure and Microsoft Graph.

Avoid: SMB solutions that do not scale (concurrency limitations, absence of SLAs, basic support). At this size, downtime or malfunction cost far exceeds licensing savings.

Final Recommendations: How to Choose

AI Agent selection should not start with technology, but with use case and business constraints. Apply this 5-step decision framework:

Step 1 - Define Specific Use Case: Not "improve customer service", but "reduce time to first response in product FAQ queries from 4 hours to 15 minutes, handling 60% of volume without human escalation". Specificity allows objective evaluation of whether platform serves.

Step 2 - Identify Non-Negotiable Constraints: Maximum monthly budget, implementation timeframe, compliance requirements (GDPR, ISO, sector-specific), and available internal technical capacity. These constraints eliminate 60-70% of options immediately.

Step 3 - Evaluate Current Ecosystem: What CRM, helpdesk, and marketing tools you use today. If you already have significant investment in Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, or Microsoft 365, native vendor solution has strong advantage for frictionless integration. Do not underestimate cost of custom integrations.

Step 4 - Pilot with 2-3 Finalists: Shortlist to 2-3 options and run 30-day pilots with real use cases, not vendor demos. Measure: real setup time, response quality in your specific data, ease of use for your team, and total cost (licensing + professional services + internal time invested).

Step 5 - Validate ROI with Data, Not Intuition: Calculate explicit payback. If agent costs £1,600/month and saves 80 hours/month of human work valued at £24/hour = £1,920 monthly savings. Immediate payback, obvious ROI. If numbers do not clearly close in <18 months, re-evaluate use case or wait for technology to mature more.

The AI Agents market is in accelerated consolidation. Expect aggressive M&A in 2025-2026 with large platforms (Salesforce, Microsoft, Adobe) acquiring specialised mid-sized players. Prioritise vendors with track record and solid funding; avoid startups without clear funding that may disappear in 12-24 months, leaving you with orphan solution.

Key Takeaways:

• No "universal best AI Agent" exists; optimal choice depends on specific use case, company size, and current technology ecosystem
• For SMEs 10-50 employees, Intercom Fin AI and Microsoft Copilot Studio offer best cost-capability-ease balance
• For companies 50-250 employees in Salesforce ecosystem, Agentforce is dominant option; outside Salesforce, consider Custom Agents over Claude/GPT-4
• GitHub Copilot has highest ROI of any AI Agent in its category (development), with typical payback <3 months
• Evaluate minimum 2-3 options through 30-day pilots with real data before commitment; vendor demos do not predict production success
• Transparent pricing and pay-as-you-grow is critical for SMEs; avoid large annual commitments on your first agent
• Integration with your current CRM/helpdesk is more important factor than advanced features you will never use; prioritise native connectors

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Need help selecting the right AI Agent for your company? At Technova Partners we evaluate your specific use case, shortlist the 2-3 best options for your context, and accompany you in pilots and POCs without vendor commitment.

Schedule an AI Agent selection consultancy (90 minutes, free) where we will analyse your current stack, identify highest ROI use case, and design objective evaluation criteria for your decision.

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Author: Alfons Marques | CEO of Technova Partners

Alfons has evaluated and supervised implementations of over 40 different AI Agents in European SMEs during 2024-2025. With technical background in ML and AI, he combines technical depth with business pragmatism to recommend solutions that really work, not the most hyped in marketing.