Gemini for Google Workspace vs Microsoft 365 Copilot

Gemini for Google Workspace

The pricing page states 'Chat with AI in Gemini, your company data is not used to train models', and the privacy notice covers Workspace with a dedicated European Privacy Standards and GDPR section plus a Service Data Addendum reference. Before I sign for eight hundred staff I need more: I found no public information on retention periods for chats and files, on where logs live, or on zero-data-retention terms with model providers.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

The Copilot privacy documentation states that prompts, responses and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren't used to train foundation LLMs, that Copilot services have opted out of the human-review abuse monitoring available in Azure OpenAI, and that users can delete their own Copilot activity history, with a downloadable Data Protection Addendum and ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications behind it. The captured pages do give different figures on training, though: the general privacy statement says Microsoft "may use your data to develop and train our AI models", while the product terms state that customer agreements take precedence over that statement. I found no public information on admin-configurable retention periods, stated retention durations for chats and files, or per-provider zero-data-retention terms.

Gemini for Google Workspace

Gemini is the named model behind the assistant and it is run by the vendor itself, and the Enterprise tier lists 'Enterprise data regions' as a feature — but the captured pages never confirm an EU processing or inference option, with residency flagged as unconfirmed. I cannot yet pin processing to Europe for my deployment on this evidence alone.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

OpenAI and Anthropic are named as the model subprocessors behind Copilot experiences, and the EU Data Boundary — with Copilot a covered workload in the Microsoft Product Terms since March 2024 — states that EU traffic stays inside the EU and EFTA for LLM processing. However, the same pages state Anthropic's models are "currently excluded from the EU Data Boundary", so EU processing is not enforced across every model behind the product. I found no public information on admin-selectable or excludable model providers, bring-your-own-key, or deployment outside Microsoft's cloud beyond the government community environments.

Gemini for Google Workspace

The Enterprise tier documents data loss prevention, context-aware access, Vault 'to retain, archive, and search data', eDiscovery, endpoint management and AI Classification for Drive — a serious admin plane. But I found no public information on SSO, SCIM provisioning, group-based control over which models, agents and connectors each team may use, or audit logs I could stream to a SIEM.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

This is documented well where it matters most for my rollout: Copilot only surfaces organizational data a user has at least view permission for, the Semantic Index enforces the identity-based access boundary during grounding, Purview-protected content keeps its usage rights, and admins can select which agents are allowed in the organisation — our SharePoint permission model carries through to answers. Entra authorization with role-based access control, Content search and Purview for stored prompts and responses, Teams export APIs for chat data, and PowerShell-based usage reports give me real admin tooling. I found no public information on SCIM provisioning, group-level assignment of specific models, or streaming audit logs to a SIEM.

Gemini for Google Workspace

The assistant is native across Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and the rest of the included suite, with Office file interoperability, a Google Workspace Migrate tool and AppSheet 'with advanced integrations'. For a mixed estate like mine I found no public information on connectors to external file stores or wikis, a documented API, or how answers cite their sources.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Copilot connectors bring external data into Microsoft Graph through a documented five-step build using the connectors API, with per-item content access settings and natural-language search over the ingested content, and stored responses include citations to the sources that grounded them. Graph REST APIs, SDKs, change notifications with Azure Event Hubs, Teams bots and the Copilot APIs let us embed assistants and agents into other tools. I found no public information on a named catalogue of connectors for CRM or ticketing systems, incremental sync frequency, or MCP support.

Gemini for Google Workspace

'Workspace Studio Automate your workday with intelligent AI agents' and tiered automations, plus AppSheet for no-code apps, are the substance of what is captured. I found no public information on run logs, human approval before consequential actions, evaluation or testing before release, or stated limits on what agents may be trusted with.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Copilot Studio builds agents without code on a visual canvas, the Agents Toolkit runs them across Copilot, Teams, web and third-party messaging channels, and the developer flow explicitly covers creating, testing and deploying agents, with admins able to select which agents are allowed in the organisation. Guardrails are documented openly — jailbreak and cross-prompt injection attack classifiers, content harm filters across hate and fairness, sexual, violence and self-harm categories, and protected-material detection for copyrighted text and licensed code. I found no public information on human approval before consequential actions, per-run logs, triggers or schedules, or evaluation against test sets before release.

Gemini for Google Workspace

Google LLC of Mountain View, USA is the vendor, the captured pages leave hosting location unconfirmed and flag exposure to the US Cloud Act with Google named as the processor of customer data, and no subprocessor list with locations appears. The privacy notice's dedicated EU/UK/Swiss GDPR section and its translations are the only European signals I can rely on here.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

Microsoft Corporation is a US company in Redmond and I found no public information on an EU contracting entity, so European sovereignty rests entirely on the EU Data Boundary — a contractual commitment that EU tenants' customer data is stored and processed within the EU and EFTA. Inside that boundary OpenAI and Anthropic are named as model subprocessors, but the captured pages state Anthropic's models are excluded from the boundary and that data continues to be transferred outside it in limited circumstances. The Data Protection Addendum and EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework membership are published safeguards, but the model chain is not European end to end.

Gemini for Google Workspace

Seat prices are public — Starter at '€6.80 / user per month', Standard at '€13.60 / user per month', Plus at '€21.10 / user per month', with 'Annual (Save 16% with 1 year commitment)' and a 300-user cap on those tiers. For my 800 staff I would need the Enterprise plan, whose price is not stated, and the add-ons are only described as 'sold separately' with no figures; AI usage limits surface only piecemeal, such as Audio Overviews 'Up to 3 per day' on Starter.

Microsoft 365 Copilot

The licensing pages document the eligible plans (Office 365 E1 through E5 and F3), a Business add-on capped at 300 users with an annual commitment, and the education and government purchase channels — but they publish no price per seat, so I cannot compute what a rollout to eight hundred staff would cost. I found no public information on usage limits, add-on pricing, or what enterprise features cost. For a purchase of this size, the number comes from a negotiation, not from a page.