Is Microsoft 365 Copilot better than ChatGPT or Claude?

It depends on the task. Copilot with the paid add-on is strongest when the work lives in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and SharePoint, because it draws on your Microsoft 365 data automatically. Claude and ChatGPT are standalone assistants that connect to Microsoft 365 and suit work built on uploaded documents, analysis, research and coding. Pilot all three on the same real tasks before deciding.

Do Claude, ChatGPT and Copilot train on my company's data?

Not by default on their business tiers. Microsoft says Copilot prompts and responses are not used to train foundation models. Anthropic lists no training by default for Claude Team and Enterprise, and OpenAI says the same for ChatGPT Business and Enterprise. Personal plans are different, so make sure staff use work accounts, not personal ones, for company information.

Can ChatGPT Enterprise keep data in Singapore?

Yes, for data at rest. OpenAI lists Singapore among its data residency regions for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu, at no extra cost. Inference residency, which keeps model processing in a region, is offered only in Europe, the United States and the UAE, so prompts may still be processed elsewhere. Confirm the details with OpenAI before you rely on them for compliance.

Is Copilot Chat free with Microsoft 365?

Copilot Chat is included at no extra cost for Microsoft Entra users with an eligible Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription. It is grounded in the web and in content you upload or have open, not your whole mailbox and file estate. Automatic grounding in your emails, meetings, chats and files needs the paid Microsoft 365 Copilot add-on licence.

Can Claude read my Outlook and SharePoint files?

Yes, through the Microsoft 365 connector, once an admin has set it up and a Microsoft Entra Global Administrator has given tenant-wide consent. Claude can then search Outlook mail and calendar, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams chats you belong to. It only sees what you can already see, and write actions such as sending email need your admin to enable them.

Should a Singapore company use more than one AI assistant?

Many do. A common pattern is Copilot for everyday work inside Microsoft 365 apps, with Claude or ChatGPT licensed for roles that use them heavily, such as analysts, writers and developers. Microsoft itself uses Claude models in parts of Copilot. The key is a written policy that names the approved tools, the accounts allowed and which data classes each may handle.

Claude vs Copilot vs ChatGPT at Work: Choosing by Task in Singapore

There is no single winner, so choose by task. Microsoft 365 Copilot suits work that lives in Outlook, Teams, Word and Excel, because the full licence grounds answers in your organisation's Microsoft 365 data. Claude and ChatGPT are standalone assistants that connect to Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace and suit work built on uploaded documents, analysis, research and coding. Check data location and admin controls before you buy.

At a glance

Microsoft 365 Copilot: works inside Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. Copilot Chat is included with eligible Microsoft 365 licences; the paid add-on adds grounding in your emails, meetings, chats and files.
Claude (Anthropic): a separate app on web, desktop and mobile. It creates Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files, has a Claude for Excel add-in and a Microsoft 365 connector, and includes Claude Code on paid plans.
ChatGPT (OpenAI): a separate app with shared projects, deep research, data analysis, apps for SharePoint, Outlook, Teams and Google Drive, and Codex on Business and Enterprise.
Training on business data: none by default on Microsoft's commercial Copilot, Claude Team and Enterprise, or ChatGPT Business and Enterprise.
Singapore data at rest: offered for ChatGPT Enterprise and Edu; Singapore is not on Microsoft 365's list of in-country commitments; Anthropic offers Singapore residency through Amazon Bedrock and Google Cloud Vertex AI.

First, be clear which Copilot you mean

Microsoft has several Copilot experiences and is renaming them: its documentation now notes that the Microsoft 365 Copilot app is called Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat is called Microsoft Copilot Chat, while licences may keep the old names during the transition. The Microsoft Copilot overview describes three levels:

Level	What you get	Your work data
Copilot Chat (Basic)	Secure chat, included with eligible licences	Only what you upload or open
Microsoft 365 Copilot (Basic)	Standard access to Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote	Only what you upload or open
Microsoft 365 Copilot (Premium)	Paid add-on, priority access, Researcher	Automatic, via Microsoft Graph and Work IQ

When people compare "Copilot" with Claude or ChatGPT, they usually mean the Premium add-on. If your team only has Copilot Chat, you are comparing a web-grounded chat assistant with two other web-grounded chat assistants, and the real difference is features and admin controls.

Task by task

Documents and presentations

Copilot drafts, rewrites and summarises inside Word, and builds or edits PowerPoint decks from a prompt or an existing file. Its advantage is location: you work on the file where it already lives, and with the Premium licence it can pull in your other documents and emails.

Claude can create and edit files in .docx, .pptx, .xlsx and PDF formats on every plan, which suits reports and decks assembled from several long sources. ChatGPT works well when a team keeps reference files and instructions in a shared project, so everyone drafts from the same material.

Whichever tool you use, give it the source, the audience and the length you want, then check every figure and name before anything leaves the building.

Email and meetings

This is Copilot's home ground. In Outlook it drafts replies, summarises threads and offers coaching on tone. In Teams, Microsoft lists meeting summaries, transcription and action items among Copilot's features; check which your licence includes.

Claude's Microsoft 365 connector can search Outlook mail and calendar, SharePoint, OneDrive and the Teams chats and channels you belong to. It sees only what you can already see, and write actions such as sending email only work if your admin enables them. ChatGPT Business, Enterprise and Edu offer apps for Outlook Email, Outlook Calendar, Teams and SharePoint, and some actions need a Microsoft Entra administrator to grant permissions first.

Spreadsheets and data analysis

Copilot in Excel analyses data and suggests formulas, insights and charts. The Claude for Excel add-in, on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, answers questions about a workbook with cell-level citations, updates assumptions while keeping formulas intact and highlights every cell it changes. ChatGPT lists data analysis on its business plans. A practical rule for all three: test on a copy of the workbook, and never paste client data into a tool your organisation has not approved.

Research

With the Premium licence, Copilot's Researcher agent combines web sources with your work data. Claude offers Research on paid plans and web search on all plans. ChatGPT offers deep research on Business and Enterprise. Whichever you use, open the sources it links to: a citation is a lead, not proof.

Coding help

Claude Code is included with Claude's paid plans and Codex with ChatGPT Business and Enterprise. On the Microsoft side, GitHub Copilot is licensed separately, and Copilot Code is a Frontier preview billed by usage. For a deeper comparison, see our guide to Claude Code and GitHub Copilot.

Data handling and admin controls to check

Compare the business tiers, never the personal ones. Here is what each vendor's own pages say today:

Check	Microsoft 365 Copilot	Claude Team, Enterprise	ChatGPT Business, Enterprise
Training on your data	Not used for foundation models	None by default	Not by default
Single sign-on	Microsoft Entra ID	Both plans	Both plans (SAML)
SCIM provisioning	Native in Entra ID	Enterprise	Enterprise
Audit and compliance	Microsoft Purview	Enterprise audit logs, Compliance API	Enterprise Compliance API
Custom retention	Purview retention policies	Enterprise	Both, custom policies on Enterprise

Sources: Microsoft enterprise data protection, Claude plans and ChatGPT business plans.

Three details matter more than the table.

Personal accounts are the real leak. Claude Free, Pro and Max are listed as opt-out for model training, and Microsoft's enterprise data protection applies only when staff sign in with their work (Entra) account. Decide which accounts are allowed and block the rest.
Connectors widen the blast radius. Each assistant can read whatever the signed-in user can read. Fix oversharing in SharePoint and OneDrive before you switch on any connector, whichever vendor you choose.
Network access is a setting. With network access on, Claude's file feature carries a documented risk of being tricked into sending data out, and new Enterprise organisations start with it off. ChatGPT admins choose when the assistant must ask before using an app. Copilot admins can block sensitive prompts with Purview data loss prevention.

Singapore specifics: PDPA and where data sits

This section is general information, not legal advice. Under the PDPA, your organisation keeps its data protection obligations whichever assistant it uses. Two matter most here: the Protection Obligation (reasonable security arrangements) and the Transfer Limitation Obligation (personal data leaves Singapore only with comparable protection).

That makes data location a real question:

ChatGPT: OpenAI's data residency article lists Singapore for data at rest on Enterprise and Edu. Inference residency is offered only in Europe, the United States and the UAE.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Singapore is not among the countries in Microsoft's data residency commitments table. Microsoft also says Copilot routes model calls to the closest datacentres but can use other regions when demand is high. Check your tenant's data location in the Microsoft 365 admin centre.
Claude: Singapore data residency is available when you use Claude through Amazon Bedrock or Google Cloud Vertex AI, according to Claude's regional compliance information. In-country residency for the Claude apps themselves is not described there, so ask Anthropic if you need it.

If your team will build a customer-facing chatbot rather than use an assistant, our PDPA checklist for AI chatbots covers the extra points.

Why many teams end up using more than one

The products overlap more than the marketing suggests. Microsoft itself runs Claude models inside Copilot: its documentation names the Researcher agent, Copilot in Excel, Copilot Cowork and Copilot Studio. Anthropic is a Microsoft subprocessor, switched on by default for most commercial customers outside the EU, EFTA and UK, so a Singapore tenant may well have it on already. An admin can turn it off in the Microsoft 365 admin centre, so check that the setting matches your policy.

Meanwhile Claude and ChatGPT both plug into Microsoft 365. A common, sensible pattern is Copilot as the default for everyday work inside Microsoft 365 apps, plus a second assistant licensed for the roles that use it heavily, such as analysts, writers or developers. The cost to avoid is paying for two seats for someone who uses one.

A four-step way to decide

List the work. Write down each team's five most frequent tasks that involve writing, summarising or analysing.
Map the data. Note where each task's data lives and how sensitive it is. Tasks that depend on Outlook, Teams and SharePoint favour Copilot; tasks built on uploaded files or code are open to all three.
Pilot side by side. Give a small group two weeks with each candidate on the same tasks, and record time saved and corrections needed in your own log.
Decide by role, then write it down. License by role, publish which tools and data classes are approved, and train people before rollout.

How CertTulen Academy can help

CertTulen Academy runs live, MCT-led online training with hands-on labs, for individuals and private corporate cohorts. For Microsoft's assistant, Transform Business Workflows with Generative AI (AB-730) goes from Copilot Chat and prompting to drafting, data analysis, meetings and agents, and prepares for the AB-730 AI Business Professional exam. For Anthropic's, Claude 101 teaches Claude for daily work, and The Complete AI Toolkit covers 28 tools for teams that want a broader view. Contact us or WhatsApp +60 16-241 8686 to plan a session for your team in a slot that suits Singapore time.