Small businesses find their AI personality as platform loyalty shifts

As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms the workplace, Britain's small businesses are discovering that choosing an AI assistant is as personal as hiring a new team member.

With ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, Claude Sonnet 4 and Perplexity – to name but a few – the question emerging seems to be which LLM do you use, rather than a simplistic argument around whether you're going to adopt AI.

New options emerging

When Marco Strillozzi decided to explore alternative AI platforms for his company, it wasn't because ChatGPT wasn't working – quite the opposite.

His team at Fluo Technologies, a B Corp-certified technology studio based in Walthamstow, had been successfully using it for nearly two years, relying on it for everything from brainstorming to revising proposals and summarising documents.

But as the AI market matured and new options emerged, Marco began exploring what else was available.

Eventually, he migrated his business to Anthropic's Claude platform, finding it aligned particularly well with his company's values and workflow needs.

Marco explains:

"It's mostly the stance on AI safety generally, and the fact that OpenAI signed a deal with the US Department of Defence, allowing its tech to be used in classified military systems with minimal restrictions, that's a big concern for me."

Open AI says its agreement with the US government has more "guardrails than any previous agreement for classified AI deployments, including Anthropic's".

Adopting AI as part of a strategy

Marco's story reflects a broader shift happening across Britain's small business landscape, where entrepreneurs are discovering that AI adoption isn't just a technical decision, it's a strategic one.

Steve Paul, an ILM 7 qualified leadership coach and business mentor at Comentco Partners, has spent 28 years working with technology companies.

He believes business owners fall into two distinct camps when confronting AI. He explains:

"Some people are saying, this is great, this is going to help me improve my operations or speed up my marketing content development.

"And others are saying, 'oh, how do I deal with this and how do I explain this?'."

This divide is particularly pronounced in small businesses, where leaders often lack specialist training. Steve sees AI adoption as inevitable:

"There's a famous quote about the steamroller and the road. You're either on the steamroller or you're on the road. And if you're on the road, you'll get crushed by it.

"People have to be very careful not to rush to say AI is going to take everybody's job or AI is going to make everybody's job better. It's totally in the hands of people who use it."

Finding the right personality

As the AI market matures, small business owners are discovering that different platforms have distinct personalities.

Steve has practical experience with various AI tools, and notes ChatGPT feels more conversational. Claude, by contrast, offers something different.

Over recent months, Claude has been gaining ground in developer communities, productivity discussions and start-up circles.

Users consistently highlight several advantages – it handles very long documents and large prompts remarkably well, responses tend to be clear and structured, and it excels at reasoning through complex topics.

For Marco's team, the transition from ChatGPT to Claude proved surprisingly smooth.

"We found Claude's ability to understand context across lengthy documents particularly valuable for our client work."

Steve values transparency in AI responses, particularly when using AI for client work. When helping clients with investor pitch decks, he openly discloses his AI use.

"I say to them, I'm using AI to help you do this to look through some of the wording, some of the presentation.

"I now take it as a matter of pride that I'm using AI to get them a result much more quickly and with different options in a way that I wouldn't have the time or hours to do it the long way around."

This transparency extends to how AI platforms source their information. Steve previously favoured Perplexity for its citation practices:

"If you did a search and looked up something, it would say where it's got its data from."

The ethics factor

For values-driven businesses, particularly those with B Corp certification or strong ethical commitments, the choice of AI platform increasingly reflects corporate values.

Marco believes 2026 might become the year when restraint becomes a strategic necessity rather than just a moral choice.

This sentiment is gaining traction among small business owners who recognise that their AI choices send signals to clients, employees and partners about what they stand for.

The landscape is shifting rapidly. While many business owners stick with the AI tools they first adopted, a growing number are actively exploring alternatives, weighing factors beyond functionality, like:

• data privacy policies

• environmental impact

• labour practices

• the ethical frameworks governing AI development

As small businesses become more sophisticated AI users, they're moving beyond the initial "wow" factor to ask deeper questions:

• Which platform aligns with our values?

• What does our choice of AI say about our business?

• How transparent should we be about our AI use?

Like any good hire, AI LLMs now need to be the right fit, not just for the work, but for the values that define the business itself. 

People also read

• Responsible AI: Why ethics matter in artificial intelligence

• How to use generative AI responsibly: Key considerations for small businesses

• AI transparency: Should you disclose your AI use?

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