The short answer
Use Microsoft 365 Copilot if your team lives inside Office and you want AI assistance while you work — drafting a paragraph in Word, summarising an email thread in Outlook, asking a question about a workbook you have open. It's glue inside the tools you already use.
Use Smalt AI when the goal is a finished finance deliverable — an Excel model an analyst would respect, a McKinsey-grade deck, sourced research with citations. Smalt AI builds the artefact end-to-end from a one-line brief; Copilot helps you build it faster while you're already inside Excel or PowerPoint.
Capability comparison
| Capability | Microsoft Copilot | Smalt AI |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams | A web chat at app.smaltai.com — outputs are downloadable .xlsx and .pptx files |
| Build a DCF / LBO from scratch | Inside Excel: can suggest formulas and analyse data, but you build the structure. No multi-sheet model from a one-line brief. | One-line brief → 14-sheet model with formulas, scenario blocks, three 5×5 sensitivity tables. Mid-year discounting by default. |
| Generate a 12-slide pitch deck | From a Word doc or your prompt — yes, native .pptx. Quality is Office-default, not consulting-grade. | One-line brief → consulting-grade .pptx with insight titles, right-rail commentary, stat-progression layouts. Bain pattern. |
| Sourced web research with citations | Limited — Copilot pulls from your tenant data and web; citations exist but inconsistent on filings. | Paragraph-level citations to filings, news, expert calls. 1M-token Claude context for entire 10-Ks in one pass. |
| Pricing | $30/user/mo (Microsoft 365 Copilot) — requires E3/E5 base license | Free tier (500 credits, no card), Basic ~$18/mo, Pro ~$45/mo, Enterprise self-host |
| Tenant isolation / data residency | Your tenant boundary, Microsoft cloud — strong compliance posture | Standard tenant isolation; Enterprise self-hosting available for full data residency |
| Models | OpenAI GPT-4 family, fine-tuned for Office context | Anthropic Claude (Sonnet, Opus, 1M context, Haiku) + Gemini for fast classification |
| Outside Office | Limited — you have to be in an Office app for the deep features | Standalone web app — works wherever you have a browser |
Where Copilot is the right tool
For in-flow AI inside Office apps, Copilot is excellent. You're already in Excel formatting a workbook — Copilot suggests a formula. You're in Outlook and want to summarise a 40-message thread — Copilot does it without leaving the inbox. You're in Teams and want notes from the meeting — Copilot generates them. The integration depth into the Office surface area is what you're buying.
For tenant-bound enterprise compliance, Copilot's "Microsoft 365 Copilot" tier inherits your tenant's data residency, retention, and access controls. If your firm has standardised on Microsoft cloud, Copilot is the path of least resistance.
For cross-app workflows — read this email, draft a Word doc, build a chart from this Excel data — Copilot's value is that it spans Office. The friction of jumping between standalone tools is gone.
Where Smalt AI is the right tool
For building a finance model from a one-line brief, Copilot is not the right shape. Inside Excel, Copilot will help you write a formula or summarise a sheet — but it won't construct a 14-sheet DCF with a debt schedule, three 5×5 sensitivities, scenario INDEX framework, and balance-sheet check tabs from "build a DCF for ABC Corp." Smalt AI does. The distinction is helper-vs-builder.
For sourced research with paragraph-level citations, Smalt AI is purpose-built around it. Every claim in a research output traces to a specific filing page, transcript paragraph, or news article. Copilot's citations are improving but inconsistent.
For 1M-token document analysis, Smalt AI uses Claude's 1M context to ingest entire 10-Ks plus four quarters of transcripts plus analyst initiations in one pass. Copilot's GPT-4 base has shorter context — long documents get chunked.
For consulting-grade decks, Smalt AI's PowerPoint generator is built against actual Bain / McKinsey / Google e-Conomy SEA reference decks. Insight titles, right-rail analysis, hero stat-progression slides. Copilot's deck output is Office-default — fine for internal updates, not for client presentations.
How they fit together
Most finance teams will end up using both. Copilot handles in-flow assistance while you're working inside Office. Smalt AI handles the heavy build — the model, the deck, the sourced research brief — that lands in Office for you to review and edit.
A typical workflow: ask Smalt AI to build a DCF and a 12-slide investor memo on Tuesday. The .xlsx and .pptx land in your inbox. You open the Excel in your tenant; Copilot helps you tweak a formula. You open the PowerPoint; Copilot helps you tighten a slide note. The two tools play complementary roles — one builds the artefact, the other helps you refine it.
Honest caveats
- Smalt AI is a standalone product — outputs are downloadable files, not edits inside an open Office app. If your workflow demands in-app AI assistance, Copilot is more native.
- Copilot is bundled with the Microsoft tax — $30/user/mo on top of an existing E3/E5 license. Smalt AI's Pro tier is ~$45/mo standalone with no base-license requirement.
- Both tools depend on frontier LLMs from OpenAI / Anthropic / Google. Capability gaps will narrow over time as model quality converges.
The summary
Microsoft 365 Copilot is excellent inside Office. Smalt AI is excellent at building finance deliverables from one-line briefs. They aren't the same shape of tool. Most finance teams will use both: Copilot as in-flow assistance while drafting in Office, Smalt AI as the AI virtual employee that constructs the artefact in the first place.
500 free credits, no credit card. Try Smalt AI on a real workflow and see for yourself.