Google and Anthropic launched competing AI tools the same week that help small business owners run their online stores, manage their finances, and market their brands. However, the two companies are taking different approaches, at least for now.
Google added a small business hub to the Gemini app where owners can work on branding, review finances, and see customer insights in one place. Owners can connect it to Google’s own business tools plus outside apps like Shopify, Canva, and Xero, and Gemini saves their brand kit so every image it generates matches the company’s look. It can also turn receipts and spreadsheets into charts and write product descriptions, newsletters, and social media posts. However, it’s still a prompt-and-respond tool — meaning, you ask, and it answers. It doesn’t take the initiative on its own.
Anthropic launched Claude Duet, an agent app that flags what needs your attention without being asked, starting with a morning brief from your connected apps and check-ins every few hours. Unlike Google’s tool, Duet can take action itself on tasks like managing a Shopify store, running payroll in Gusto, chasing unpaid invoices in QuickBooks, and buying things with Shop Pay, asking for approval before it sends, pays for, signs, or deletes anything. Duet is a fully agentic tool — meaning, it doesn’t wait for you to ask, and it doesn’t stop at just giving you an answer. It can go beyond suggestions and actually perform the work.
Google’s hub is rolling out worldwide to every Gemini user, including free ones, while Duet is a waitlist-only research preview for US subscribers on Claude’s Pro and Max plans.
The Different Approaches: Google is launching a smaller set of tools to everyone, while Anthropic is going fully agentic from day one, but only for a small group of users. However, I’d imagine that both paths eventually end up in the same place, with tools that offer business owners a similar set of functionalities and benefits.
If both of those tools sound familiar, you might be remembering that OpenAI entered the space in July with ChatGPT Work, an agent mode that handles multi-step tasks and scheduled jobs, which it pitched to small businesses with a dedicated program called ChatGPT for Small Business a couple of weeks later.
