Most small service businesses need at most two AI tools: a general chat assistant (ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini) for thinking and writing, and one assistant that knows the business and runs the recurring work in your own channels. Add an automation platform like Zapier only if you have fixed, high-volume rules to wire up. More tools than that usually means more logins, not less work. For the full picture, see AI for small business.
The four kinds of AI tool
1. Chat assistants: ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. Excellent for drafting, research and thinking out loud. You bring the task and the context each time. See Dagny vs ChatGPT, Dagny vs Claude and Dagny vs Gemini. 2. Copilots inside your office suite: Microsoft Copilot and Gemini in Google Workspace. Useful inside the document or inbox you already have open. See Dagny vs Microsoft Copilot. 3. Automation platforms: Zapier and similar. Reliable rules between apps, built and maintained by you. See Dagny vs Zapier. 4. Business assistants that run the work: Dagny. Connects to your tools, learns how you work, and drafts the replies, follow-ups and updates for you to approve.
Five questions that make the choice easy
1. Who starts the work? If it is always you, you have a tool. If it sometimes starts itself, you have help. 2. Where does it live? A tab you have to remember, or the Slack, texts and email you already check? 3. Does it know your business? Your services, your prices, your tone, your customers. 4. Who approves what goes out? For anything a customer reads, the answer should be you. 5. Can you try it on real work first? A free start tells you more than any demo.
A sensible setup for a small team
An electrician with three vans: ChatGPT for the occasional letter or tender text, Dagny for enquiry replies, quote follow-ups, the website and the Monday numbers. An accounting firm: Copilot inside Excel for the spreadsheets, Dagny for client emails, meeting prep and chasing documents. A hair salon: Dagny for the price list, the Google profile and filling quiet Tuesdays. None of them needs a stack of ten tools.
Where Dagny fits, and where it does not
Dagny is built for service businesses with a small team: trades, salons, clinics, and professional firms like accountants, lawyers and consultants. It is not the right choice if you need custom machine learning models or on-premise hosting, if your main problem is warehouse and shipping logistics, or if you only want a chat tool for writing. In those cases a chat assistant or a specialist platform will serve you better.
Try before you commit
The honest way to choose is to give each tool one real job for a week. Dagny starts with $100 in free credits and no credit card, and paid plans start at $20 a month. The playbook lists the jobs worth trying first.
Give Dagny one real job this week. It drafts, you approve.
Try Dagny