What 70+ AI tools for businesses taught us, and what we changed the same day

On 28 September our founder asked a fair question: had we actually looked at what everyone else does, or had we mostly read their homepages? The honest answer was mostly homepages. We had used only two competitors properly.

So we widened it the same day. We read the public product, pricing, trust and legal pages of:

• 33 AI tools that small businesses sign up for themselves;
• 23 agent platforms sold to large companies;
• 21 Indian customer-service and AI vendors, plus Meta, Google, Microsoft and AWS as they sell in India.

We also went through the list of Y Combinator companies from 2022 to 2026 and found 162 that work on something close to what we do. Then we signed up for the products that would let us in and walked them from sign-up to their first real result.

We didn't copy anything. Here is what we found, what we changed, and what we still don't have.

What small-business tools do

Most ask for your website before anything else. Pazi, Origami and Gojiberry ask for it before you even have an account, and keep it through sign-up. The better ones read it and come back with something useful within minutes.

Many want a card first. Several "AI employee" products take a card before you see anything, and at least one trial turns into a paid monthly plan automatically. Others gate everything behind a setup call.

Almost none tell you what a reply will cost before it happens. Prices are usually a monthly plan in dollars, sometimes with credits that aren't explained in money.

Very few price in rupees or mention Indian languages. None that we read names Hinglish, the way many of your customers actually write.

Approval before anything goes out is normal for tools that post or send as you. The best ones let you choose how much the AI does on its own.

The free option many businesses will meet first is Meta's own assistant inside the WhatsApp Business app. It's worth knowing it exists. What it doesn't do is post on LinkedIn, book calls on your calendar, or send email follow-ups, and Meta doesn't offer it to some industries.

What we changed in Dhanur AI that day

• Your website first. Type your website on dhanurai.com. It's waiting for you, filled in, when you sign in, and one click sets up an assistant that answers from it.
• The price of a reply, before you start. Each goal now says about what a reply costs on the assistant it sets up. Today that's about ₹2.17, from the same table as the pricing page. Every task still shows exactly what it cost afterwards.
• No card to begin. New workspaces start with ₹25 of credits, then you pay as you go, in rupees plus GST. We've stopped saying "free", because early access isn't free any more.
• Your balance, always in view, at the bottom of the sidebar. It turns amber before it runs out.
• "Stuck? Ask us on WhatsApp" on every step that needs you, and in the Help menu.
• The next step on Home. Once you pick a goal, the one thing to do next sits at the top, with its button.
• Troubleshooting for running out of credits, customers who can't reach your assistant, and LinkedIn. Troubleshooting

The changelog has every change.

What large companies expect, and where we stand

The enterprise platforms all ask buyers for the same things before anything else. Here's where we stand on each:

• We have:
  • no training on customer data;
  • approvals;
  • version history;
  • personal details masked before the AI sees them;
  • saved test sets that run before you publish;
  • export of what every agent did, to your own monitoring tools.
• Partly there:
  • roles, which today apply to the whole workspace, not per agent;
  • audit logs;
  • where data is stored. Our databases are in India, but photos and PDFs sent in chats are stored in New York, and the AI runs outside India.
• Not yet:
  • single sign-on;
  • a SOC 2 report;
  • a signed data processing agreement;
  • self-serve export and deletion of your data under India's data protection law.

We're publishing the gaps because a buyer should hear them from us first. Most are on our status page, and we'll say here when each one ships.

What Indian businesses told the market they need

• Data kept in India, with an honest map of where it goes.
• Evidence of security, not just badges.
• Terms ready for India's data protection law before it fully applies in May 2027.

Hardly any vendor we read mentions that law at all. We intend to be the one that explains it plainly.

What we still haven't seen

Some products wouldn't let us in:

• Two block sign-up from embedded browsers.
• One needs a pop-up we couldn't open.
• One asks for a card first.
• One asks for a call first.

We'll try those from an ordinary browser and write up what we find.

The next round:

• small-business tools that are free to try without a card;
• the free trials of the big enterprise platforms;
• the Indian mid-market tools, with India data centres selected.

If you run a small business in India and want your website answering customers, start with your website. It takes about two minutes, and you try it before anything goes live.