Free Corporate Copilot vs Claude: What Happened When I Just Wanted an XLOOKUP
A lot of businesses — especially the “blue collar,” non-tech ones — are locked into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem these days, and the free Copilot access that comes bundled with a business 365 plan gets pitched as your AI assistant for everything. So I thought it’d be useful to write up what actually happened when I put it up against Claude on the exact same task, back to back, this week. A bit of context, minus the name: I work for a proper blue-chip. Genuinely massive — the kind of company most people would recognise instantly, with a household name...