Excel Gets Direct Copilot AI Integration for Data Tasks
Microsoft is continuing its aggressive push to embed artificial intelligence into every facet of its product ecosystem, with the latest integration bringing the power of Copilot directly into individual Excel cells. Available now to beta users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new COPILOT function allows users to delegate complex generative AI tasks to Redmond’s AI, right within a spreadsheet. This strategic move aims to further justify the software giant’s substantial investment in AI datacenter infrastructure by making Copilot an indispensable tool across its most widely used applications, particularly Excel, which remains a cornerstone for countless financial and data analysis functions.
Catherine Pidgeon, Head of Product for Excel Core, detailed the capabilities of this new function. Like any standard Excel function, it is invoked by preceding it with an equals sign. Users then enclose their natural language prompt in quotes within parentheses, followed by a comma, and then specify any relevant context, such as a range of cells, that Copilot should consider.
For instance, in a demonstration, Pidgeon and Principal PM Manager Joe McDaid illustrated the function’s ability to analyze sentiment within a dataset. Using a spreadsheet containing comments about a coffee machine, with individual remarks listed in column D, McDaid entered the formula =COPILOT("Summarize this feedback into a paragraph",D4:D18) into cell D21. Within seconds, cell D21 populated with a concise summary of the coffee machine reviews, highlighting common praises for ease of use and quick operation. The prompt could then be easily modified to condense the summary into a single sentence, showcasing generative AI’s unique ability to perform summarization, particularly sentiment analysis, a feat not traditionally achievable within Excel.
Beyond summarization, the COPILOT function can also categorize data. In another example, McDaid presented a list of predefined categories—Taste, Ease of Use, Noise, and Other—in cells B4 to B8. To assign these categories to each of 15 coffee machine reviews, he entered =COPILOT("Categorize this feedback",D4:D18,"into one of these categories",B4:B8) into cell E4. This demonstrated the function’s capacity to handle multiple prompts and contexts. Almost instantly, column E filled with the appropriate categories matching the feedback in column D, such as assigning “This machine operates so quickly” to the “Ease of Use” category.
The functionality extends further to extracting multiple data points simultaneously. By adding column headers for “Sentiment” and “Emoji” in cells F3 and G3, McDaid adapted the formula in E4 to =COPILOT("Categorize this feedback",D4:D18,"into one of these categories",B4:B8,"return these columns",E3:G3). Excel then populated all three columns (Category, Sentiment, and Emoji) alongside each review, providing a comprehensive, automatically generated analysis that could then be seamlessly integrated into a pivot table for higher-level insights.
The COPILOT function isn’t limited to analyzing existing spreadsheet data; it can also pull information from Copilot’s extensive knowledge base. One compelling demonstration showed a user entering =COPILOT("List airports codes from major airports in",E3), where cell E3 contained the name of a country. When E3 was set to “USA,” the spreadsheet automatically populated with major US airport codes like ATL, LAX, and JFK. Changing E3 to “Australia” instantly updated the list to include SYD, MEL, and BNE, among others. Furthermore, the COPILOT function can be nested within other Excel formulas, or other formulas can be nested within it, enabling advanced data manipulation. For instance, WRAPROWS(COPILOT("List airports codes from major airports in",E3),3,"") arranges the airport codes into a three-column grid, showcasing its versatility.
While Microsoft is expected to broaden the availability of this powerful feature, access currently requires a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, which costs $30 per user per month, and participation in the Microsoft 365 Insider program’s beta channel. This integration marks a significant step in transforming Excel from a mere data processing tool into a dynamic, AI-powered analytical engine.