[AI Office]AI Tool Showdown
Summary: Six mainstream tools, each with its own strengths — there is no "best," only "best fit." This article uses one comparison table to help you pick quickly by scenario.
1. Why You Need This Showdown
The names of AI tools keep multiplying: ChatGPT, Copilot, Qwen (千问), ERNIE Bot (文心一言), WPS AI, M365 Copilot… just reading the names is enough to make your head spin. The even more common trap: what someone else swears by, you simply can't use.
The reason is simple — although they're all called "AI assistants," their positioning is completely different. Some are general-purpose chatbots; others are office helpers built directly into your Office suite. Pick the wrong direction, and even the strongest model won't do you any good.
This article does exactly one thing: spell out each tool's positioning, strengths, weaknesses, pricing, and who it's for, so you can decide based on your own situation. All versions and capability boundaries are drawn from official public materials released in 2025; subscription prices may change at any time, so confirm on the official website before you commit.
2. One Comparison Table to See the Whole Picture
| Tool | Positioning | Strengths | Weaknesses | Paid plans (as of end of 2025) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | General-purpose AI chat / creation | Strong general writing, brainstorming, and reasoning; defaults to GPT-5, with Thinking / Pro tiers; rich ecosystem and plugins | Does not natively embed in your office documents; watch out for enterprise data leaving the country | Free tier available; paid Plus / Pro / Team plans; GPT-5 Thinking context window is about 196k tokens | Individuals who write, generate ideas, do research, or learn new things |
| Microsoft Copilot / M365 Copilot | Office AI embedded in Microsoft 365 | Lives right inside Word / Excel / PPT / Outlook / Teams; can pull in your work data; enterprise-grade compliance | Full capability depends on an M365 subscription base and is pricey; locked into the Microsoft ecosystem | Free Copilot Chat (requires a qualifying M365 subscription + Entra ID); full M365 Copilot about $30 / user / month (requires an E3 / E5 base); Copilot Pro $20 / month (personal); Copilot Business $21 / month (SMB, from 2025-12) | Teams already on Microsoft 365 who need to work with their own documents and spreadsheets |
| Qwen (千问) (Alibaba) | General-purpose Chinese AI (Qwen App / Alibaba Cloud Bailian) | Top-tier Chinese capability; open-source Qwen3 series; long context (some models reach 1M); easy API integration | Weak office-suite embedding; less handy than dedicated tools for personal office tasks | Qwen App has a free quota; API is pay-per-use (qwen-plus / qwen-max / qwen-flash tiers, etc.) | Chinese writing, developers calling APIs, users who want to build their own AI workflows |
| ERNIE Bot (文心一言) (Baidu) | General-purpose Chinese AI | Strong Chinese and multimodal capability; ERNIE 4.5 Turbo / X1 Turbo at low prices; connects to the Baidu ecosystem | Weak office-suite embedding; limited overseas availability | Free tier available; API is pay-per-use with low input prices (some tiers about ¥0.8 / million tokens) | Chinese content production, cost-sensitive users, domestic-compliance-first users |
| WPS AI (Kingsoft) | Office AI embedded in WPS Office | Embedded directly in documents / spreadsheets / PPT / PDF; version 2.0 includes four assistants — Writing / Reading / Data / Design; strong localization (official documents, education) | Strongly depends on the WPS ecosystem; advanced mobile features are incomplete | Basic functions are free; AI benefits are bundled into "WPS 大会员" at about ¥188 / year; enterprise edition from ¥899 / year | Individuals and teams who daily write documents, build tables, and make PPTs in WPS |
| M365 Copilot (see the Copilot row) | — | — | — | — | — |
Note: "M365 Copilot" in the table above is the paid full version of Microsoft Copilot, already merged into row 2. If you only want free chat, Copilot Chat is included in a qualifying M365 subscription (from 2025-10).
3. Two Concepts That Are Easiest to Confuse
3.1 General-Purpose vs. Office-Embedded
This is the first dividing line when choosing:
- General-purpose (ChatGPT, Qwen, ERNIE Bot): you open a chat window, tell it what you need, and it returns text / code / a plan. It excels at "creating from scratch" — writing copy, generating ideas, explaining concepts, writing code.
- Office-embedded (M365 Copilot, WPS AI): the AI grows right inside your documents, spreadsheets, and PPTs. You don't copy-paste — it can read the file you're writing, edit your spreadsheet, and draft an email from your meeting notes.
In one line: use general-purpose when you need to "create something out of nothing," and use the dedicated tools when you need to "edit what you already have — your documents and tables."
3.2 Same Name, but Possibly Different Things
The word "Copilot" is the easiest to mix up:
- Copilot Chat: free AI chat (requires a qualifying M365 subscription).
- Microsoft Copilot / Copilot Pro: personal-oriented; Pro is about $20 / month and plugs into your personal M365 apps.
- M365 Copilot (full version): about $30 / user / month, embedding AI into enterprise Word / Excel / PPT / Outlook / Teams, and requiring an M365 E3 / E5 base license.
- Copilot Business: about $21 / user / month (from 2025-12, for SMBs under 300 people).
Before you buy, first confirm whether you want "chat" or "the suite that embeds into Office" — the price differs by several times over.
4. How to Choose by Scenario
- Brain empty and need to write a weekly report / brainstorm an event plan → general-purpose (ChatGPT, Qwen, ERNIE Bot) — open a window and it works; the free tiers are mostly enough.
- Have a 50-page PDF to distill / need to revise based on your own documents → office-embedded (WPS AI reads PDFs, M365 Copilot reads your files).
- A pile of numbers in Excel to analyze and chart → WPS AI's Data assistant, or M365 Copilot analyzing directly inside Excel.
- Need to make a PPT → WPS AI's AI Slides, or M365 Copilot generating inside PowerPoint.
- Your team is already in Microsoft 365 → prioritize M365 Copilot (mind the subscription-base cost).
- Mostly use WPS personally, budget-sensitive → WPS 大会员 offers great value.
- Developer / need APIs for automation → Qwen (open-source Qwen3), ERNIE Bot API at low cost.
5. Common Selection Pitfalls
- Pitfall 1: "Expensive means better." For personal writing, the free tiers of ChatGPT / Qwen / ERNIE Bot are already strong; paying $30 / month for M365 Copilot while not using the Microsoft suite is a waste.
- Pitfall 2: "One tool handles everything." General-purpose tools aren't good at editing your local documents, and embedded tools aren't good at freewheeling creation. Combine them and life gets easier (see the pairing ideas in A2, the overview).
- Pitfall 3: "Similar names mean the same category." As above, the four Copilot tiers are positioned completely differently — double-check before you place the order.
- Pitfall 4: "Being able to go online means it understands my company's data." General chat by default does not read your files; to work from your own data you need the office-embedded type or turn on the relevant connector / permissions, and mind the data policy (see A5, the safety red lines).
6. Recap & Next Steps
None of the six tools is an absolute winner: general-purpose handles "thinking and writing," office-embedded handles "editing and doing." First be clear about which kind you need, then look at budget and your existing ecosystem — and choosing gets easy.
- Want to build overall awareness and a tool-pairing mindset → read A2 (AI Office Overview)
- Want to learn to state your needs clearly so AI understands you better → read A3 (Prompting for Beginners)
- Want to know what you must never hand to AI, and how to protect data → read A5 (Safety Red Lines)
7. CTA
When choosing, always mind each vendor's data policy and privacy terms — especially before handing company documents to AI, first confirm the data storage and cross-border rules. Next up we'll talk about A5: AI Office Safety Red Lines, teaching you to use it smoothly without getting burned.
This article is a draft. Version and pricing information is based on official public materials from 2025; refer to each product's official website for the latest details.