The AI challenge: how to choose the right one for your work

Smart Eventi takes a practical approach to AI, focusing on how each tool can support specific tasks rather than on how popular it happens to be. When choosing an AI platform, the useful question is which one fits the task at hand and works well with the existing workflow. Popularity alone says little about whether a tool will actually improve productivity, especially when different platforms are designed to handle different kinds of work.

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Start with the task, not the tool

Every AI platform has particular strengths, and those strengths matter when work gets specific. ChatGPT, for example, supports brainstorming, writing, image generation, file analysis and web research, making it useful across a broad range of marketing and event-related tasks.

Claude has developed a strong focus on complex knowledge work, particularly when a task requires working with large amounts of information over an extended context. Its current models can handle large amounts of information and work across documents, making them useful when a project involves substantial written material.

Microsoft Copilot takes a different route by sitting inside the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. It can assist with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams, which becomes particularly relevant for companies already living inside those applications.

The lesson is wonderfully simple: define the job first, then choose the assistant.

Finding the right fit

The differences become clearer when the same kind of work is approached with different tools. Someone dealing with a long internal report, for example, may need an AI that can keep a large amount of information in context and make connections between different parts of the material. But the same may not work as well for a presentation or an initial brainstorming session, where a tool with stronger generative capabilities may feel more natural to use.

The same principle applies to the way AI fits into existing software. An organisation that already relies heavily on a particular digital environment may find an integrated solution more convenient than a separate platform, while someone working across different systems may have different priorities. The choice can therefore depend as much on the way a task is carried out as on the capabilities of the AI itself.

So before choosing an AI platform, look at your actual work process, paying attention to the files you handle and the applications you use, as well as the kind of tasks that take up most of your time.

AI should make decisions easier

There is a temptation to treat AI as a digital genie waiting for the perfect prompt, ready to produce a miracle as soon as you give it an instruction, before moving on to the next task. You know what the outcome is nine times out of ten? A shabby, predictable piece of work that screams “incompetently AI-generated” from beginning to end. Real work, if you want to achieve something genuinely valuable, tends to be considerably messier.

AI can accelerate research and help organise information, but professional judgement remains essential. Every sector, from content production to event planning, involves budgets, people, logistics, brand identity and plenty of last-minute curveballs. A generated idea may look great on screen, yet someone still needs to understand whether it can actually work in the real world and what it would take to turn it into something worthwhile. That human layer is where expertise becomes valuable, and in professional work, there is no substitute for first-class expertise.

Try less, choose better

The objective is pretty simple: spending less time wrestling with repetitive work leaves more room for ideas and decisions that depend on experience and human judgement, particularly when a machine cannot provide the context needed to make the right call.

A sensible approach may therefore involve keeping the number of tools manageable and getting more out of the ones that actually fit the workflow. After all, if choosing which AI to use starts taking longer than actually using it, it can feel a bit like scrolling through Netflix for ages and still having no idea what to watch.

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