Artificial Intelligence in Excel: Copilot and AI Functions

An accountant hunts for a formula for half an hour, fails, and calls a colleague. Had they typed the same question into ChatGPT, a working answer would arrive in thirty seconds. The AI era in Excel came quietly: not with bright announcements, but with the "write this formula for me" habit.

Two separate things get mixed up in the Excel AI topic: AI inside Excel (Copilot and the smart functions), and external AI help with Excel work (getting formulas, macros and explanations from ChatGPT-type tools). The two carry different capabilities and different risks. This article separates both across real work scenarios.

What can Copilot do in Excel?

For users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, working with language inside Excel is possible: "show the 5 best-selling products in this table", "build a trend chart by month", "split the city names out of this column". Copilot reads the table, proposes a formula or a pivot, and explains the result.

The real situation is this: Copilot works well on structured, clean tables (in Table format) and gets confused in files with messy layouts. In complex multi-step analytics, verifying the result is a must. And the main barrier — the separate subscription price. For small teams, the "external AI" route below often delivers the same benefit for free.

Excel work with ChatGPT: 4 working scenarios

• Having formulas written: "Column A has dates, B has amounts. Write a formula summing the last 30 days." The answer usually works directly; when it does not, paste the error back — it will fix it.
• Having formulas explained: pasting the terrifying nested formula from someone else's file and saying "explain this in plain language". The biggest time saving with inherited files is here.
• Having macros/VBA written: "a macro that saves each sheet as a separate PDF"; the code arrives ready. Testing the code on a test file before running it is a must.
• Structure advice: "suggest a table structure for a monthly sales report"; it removes the blank-sheet fear.

One rule covers all four scenarios: describe the table's structure to the AI, not the confidential data itself. Saying "column A is the customer name, column B the debt amount" is enough; pasting real names and figures is unnecessary — and often not allowed.

Excel's built-in smart functions (without Copilot)

Flash Fill deserves a separate mention: it does the work of dozens of TEXT formulas with one example + Ctrl+E. Even without being called "AI", its daily usefulness beats many AI features.

What should you not trust AI with?

Let us draw the boundaries openly. First: the correctness of the final numbers. A formula the AI wrote can look logical yet grab the wrong range; in a critical report, hand-verify the result on a small sample. Second: confidential data. Uploading the whole finance file to an external service is a data-policy violation; work with a structure description. Third: a macro you do not understand. VBA code can delete and overwrite files; the test-copy rule is absolute here.

One observation: the users who benefit most from AI are not those who know the least, but those past the intermediate level. Because they can feel whether a result is plausible. That feeling comes from knowing the core formulas; AI does not replace it — it builds on top of it.

Sources and further reading

Where to verify the source

Copilot's capabilities update quickly; check the current feature list at the official source.

• Microsoft Support: Copilot in Excel: the official capabilities and requirements
• Microsoft Support: Flash Fill: example-based filling

Continuing the topic

AI help builds on foundational knowledge; the foundations are in these articles:

• Learning Excel: a practical guide from zero
• The most important Excel formulas
• How to use ChatGPT
• The 10 golden rules of prompt writing
• Other articles on this topic

Run one experiment on tomorrow's working day: describe to the AI the formula you last struggled with. That thirty-second experience will change your relationship with Excel — in the good sense.