Microsoft 365 Copilot vs Gemini in Google Workspace: which suits small businesses?

Prices for small businesses (as of October 2026)

Microsoft: according to Microsoft’s German page, Microsoft 365 Business Standard together with Microsoft 365 Copilot Business costs 20.36 euros per user and month with annual billing, or 24.43 euros on a monthly plan. Business Premium with Copilot costs 27.73 euros with annual billing. If you already have an eligible Business subscription, you can add Copilot Business for 18.20 euros per user and month; Microsoft advertises a promotional price of 15.60 euros that you can sign up for until 31 December 2026. According to Microsoft, the special price applies only in the first contract year and requires an annual subscription that renews automatically. All prices exclude VAT. For the European Economic Area there are also cheaper versions without Teams.

Google: according to the German pricing page, Business Starter costs 6.80 euros, Business Standard 13.60 euros and Business Plus 21.10 euros per user and month, each excluding tax. These prices apply with a one-year commitment, which Google advertises as saving 16 percent; billing is monthly. Gemini is included. For new customers, Google also advertises time-limited introductory discounts. The price shown before you complete sign-up is what counts.

Our assessment: for an office with email, documents and AI, Google’s base price is clearly lower. The comparison is only fair, though, if you compare like with like, such as storage, video meetings and security features.

What the AI can do day to day

According to Microsoft, Microsoft 365 Copilot works in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams: drafting and summarising texts, analysing data in Excel, building presentations from notes and summarising meetings in Teams. On top of that there are ready-made agents such as a Researcher and an Analyst agent, and Copilot Studio for building your own agents. According to Microsoft, the simpler Copilot Chat is available at no extra cost to users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription; only the Copilot licence connects it to the company’s emails, files and calendars.

According to Google, Gemini in Google Workspace is included in Gmail on Business Starter, plus basic access to the Gemini app and the AI video tool Google Vids. From Business Standard, Gemini is also built into Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive, Meet and Chat, with expanded access to Google’s most capable models, the research tool Gemini Notebook and Workspace Studio for simple AI automations. More image and video generation, more automations and the live interpreter are sold by Google as a separate add-on.

Privacy: what the providers promise

Microsoft: according to Microsoft, with what it calls Enterprise Data Protection, prompts and responses stay within the boundary of the Microsoft 365 service, which says nothing about location, and are not used to train the language models. Prompts and responses are logged according to your retention policies and can be searched for legal reviews.

Google: according to Google’s privacy page for generative AI in Workspace, prompts are treated as customer data. Google says it does not use them for training without prior permission, and content is not reviewed by humans without permission.

Both are vendor claims that we cannot verify independently. For a company in Germany, what ultimately counts is what is written in the contract and the data processing agreement.

Data storage in Europe (vendor claims)

Microsoft: Microsoft refers to the EU Data Boundary, a commitment to store and process customer data and personal data of the covered services within the EU. One important exception: when Anthropic models are used in Copilot for Word, Excel or PowerPoint, Microsoft says their processing takes place outside the EU Data Boundary. In November 2025 Microsoft had also announced that Copilot requests would be processed in Germany from 2026, as heise reported at the time. Microsoft changed this country commitment in April 2026: for EU and EFTA countries, processing is now planned at regional level within the EU Data Boundary, no longer specifically in Germany.

Google: according to Google, Business Standard and Business Plus include the basic tier of what it calls data regions. With it, Gemini prompts and responses are also stored at rest in the chosen region, for example Europe. According to Google, keeping them in the region during processing as well requires Enterprise Data Regions, for example in Enterprise Plus or as a paid add-on. Business Starter includes no data regions.

Which suits which business

The following is an editorial recommendation based on the providers’ information, not our own hands-on test.

Microsoft 365 Copilot suits you if your work happens in Word, Excel, Outlook and Teams, you exchange many Office files with customers and you are willing to pay a substantial surcharge per person for the AI. One advantage is the EU Data Boundary for storage and processing, though not for Anthropic models in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Gemini in Google Workspace suits you if you work in the browser, use Gmail and Google Docs or want a cheap start. For most small businesses Business Standard is the sensible tier, because only there is Gemini built into Docs, Sheets and Meet.

Our assessment: switching the entire office suite just for the AI is rarely worth it, because moving emails, files and habits is a project in itself.