Articles·AI agents
Copilot, ChatGPT, or an agent team built around your agency: where each one wins
Off the shelf assistants like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot win when one person wants help drafting and summarizing. An AI automation agency wins when you need a few apps connected, a hired assistant wins when the job needs a person on the phone, and a custom agent team from DoBetter (dobetter.plus) wins when a benefits agency wants several agents sharing one memory and following its approval rules.
How do the options compare?
| ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot | An AI automation agency | Hiring an assistant | A custom agent team from DoBetter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | A subscription per person | Varies by agency | A salary | Fixed fee after a $1,500 discovery |
| What it handles | Drafts, summaries, questions you type in | Moving data between apps | Calendar, phones, follow through, judgment | Meeting briefs, inbox drafts, daily priorities, shared memory |
| What it remembers | What you give it, inside its own app | The workflow it was built for | Everything, until they leave | Your decisions, clients, and rules, read by every agent |
| Who approves | You, one chat at a time | Depends on the build | The assistant decides | A person, at the points you choose |
| What it can’t do | Know your agency unless you teach it every time | Know benefits | Work at 10pm every night | Answer the phone |
When is ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot the better choice?
ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot is the better choice when one person wants a writing and summarizing partner. Copilot in Outlook drafts a message from your prompt, and you adjust the tone and length until it’s right. ChatGPT can connect to Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts and use them in a conversation, and its projects can keep their own memory.
If your team lives in Outlook or Gmail and mostly needs a better first draft, start there. The tradeoff is that each tool knows what you’ve shown it inside that tool. It won’t know that the research agent found something about a prospect, or that you decided on a renewal strategy last week in a different app.
When is an AI automation agency the better choice?
An AI automation agency is the better choice when the job is plumbing. If you want a form submission to land in your agency management system and trigger an email, a general automation agency can connect the apps.
The tradeoff is benefits knowledge. A general agency won’t know that ID cards are the top emailed topic at open enrollment, what a renewal timeline looks like, or why a reply to an HR contact needs a producer’s judgment.
When is hiring an assistant the better choice?
Hiring an assistant is the better choice when the job needs a person: answering the phone, walking into a client’s office, calling a carrier rep who owes you a favor. No agent does that.
The tradeoff is that what an assistant knows lives in their head. When they leave, it leaves with them.
When is a custom agent team the better choice?
A custom agent team is the better choice when the owner or a producer is the bottleneck and the same context gets explained over and over. I run one for my own work every day. I haven’t built one for a benefits client yet.
Mine has an executive assistant that briefs me and hands work out, a research agent that writes meeting briefs, an inbox agent that drafts replies, and a business coach for pricing and positioning. They all read one business brain. Before that memory existed, I spent about 10 extra minutes at the start of every session explaining yesterday. Now every agent starts with it.
The guardrails are written down. My inbox agent can read and write drafts, and it can’t send. “It takes a long time for me to train a reply agent, so we take away the send permission.” When I rejected 23 of 26 follow up drafts, it was because I hadn’t built the part that attaches the deck. Because every draft waited for me, none of those went out without the deck.
Quick answers
- Can I mix these?
- Yes. Keep Copilot for drafting in Outlook and add agents for the jobs that need your agency’s memory.
- Do you build on ChatGPT?
- I build on Claude, the AI model from Anthropic. It’s what my own agents run on.
- Does an agent team replace an assistant?
- No. It takes the repeat work so an assistant or producer spends the day on people.
- Where do I start?
- Shared memory, then one agent with one job.
Next step
If you’d rather talk it through, the intro call is free and takes 30 minutes: dobetter.plus/talk.
+Talk to Chris