YNSPIRACopilot in Excel
Microsoft
Copilot in Excel is for anyone who wants to spend less time building spreadsheets by hand, hunting for the right formula and clicking through menus to analyse data. You describe what you want in plain words, and Copilot can help you analyse numbers, write formulas, clean up data, build charts and pivot tables, and make changes directly in the workbook.
Who has access to Copilot in Excel?
Organisations with the M365 Copilot (Premium) add-on licence have access to all the functionality in Copilot in Excel. We call this version Premium for the rest of this article.
Many people on qualifying Microsoft 365 subscriptions without the Copilot Premium add-on also have standard access to Copilot in Excel.
Which Copilot experience you get depends on your licence type and your organisation's settings.
Copilot in Excel is much smarter than it was in the early years
You no longer have to format everything as an Excel table before using Copilot. Microsoft also supports ordinary, contiguous cell ranges. But the structure of your data still matters a great deal.
For the best results you want clear column headers, one type of information per column, consistent date and number formats, contiguous data without unnecessary blank rows, and as few merged cells as possible.
Turning the range into an Excel table with Ctrl+T is still often a good idea, but it is no longer a requirement.
Who is it for?
Copilot in Excel works best for people who spend a lot of time in Excel but do not necessarily love building everything manually. Analysts, project managers, finance people, consultants and managers who often need quick answers from data will get a lot out of it.
You will probably get the most value if you know fairly precisely what you want to find out, but lose time working out how to do it in Excel.
If you are an expert user with large financial models, complex links and business critical calculations, Copilot can still be useful, but you should have an even lower threshold for checking every significant change it makes.
Model selection for Premium users
Premium users can choose between supported models from OpenAI and Anthropic, or let Copilot pick automatically.
That also means the question is no longer "should we go with Copilot or Claude". Claude models can be used inside Copilot in Excel if your organisation has Premium and the administrator has enabled Anthropic models.
How to use it
Open a workbook in Excel and click the Copilot button. On Windows, Mac and in the browser you can choose between edit, plan and chat mode. Copilot is also on iPad, iPhone and Android, but the range of features varies between platforms.
Start with a concrete task, for example:
"Build an overview showing revenue and profit per region, compare it with last year and flag the three biggest deviations."
The more clearly you describe the result you want, the easier it is for Copilot to do something useful.
Relevant guides and articles
Features
Natural language
Ask questions about your data and get formulas, charts and insight without writing the formulas yourself.
Edit with Copilot
Ask Copilot to make changes directly in Excel. It can insert formulas and data, format ranges, create sheets and build reports across several steps.
Analysis and insight
Ask questions about your data and get help finding trends, differences, outliers and other patterns.
Pivot tables and charts
Describe what you want to show, and Copilot can create and edit charts and pivot tables as ordinary Excel elements.
Planning
Ask Copilot to draw up a plan for a larger task before it makes any changes. That gives you more control when the task runs over several steps.
Choose your AI model (with Premium)
Premium users can choose between supported models from OpenAI and Anthropic, or let Copilot pick automatically.
Does your team need training in Copilot?
We run tailored courses and workshops in Copilot, adapted to your business and your working day.
Tips for good use
- Good column headers and consistent data matter more than advanced prompting. An Excel table helps, but it is not mandatory.
- Describe the result you want. "Analyse the sales figures" is fairly open. Try this instead: "Compare sales per region with the same period last year and show the three largest positive and negative deviations."
- Use plan mode and ask Copilot to propose the approach first if you are making larger changes or restructuring the Excel file.
- Use "Edit with Copilot" to change a file or build new reports and analysis models from scratch. Describe what you need and Copilot sets up the structure.
- If your admin has enabled it, you can now pick the Claude models when you use "Edit with Copilot".
- Copilot can save you a lot of manual work, but you are still responsible for the result. Check the numbers before you pass them on to colleagues.
Available on
Links and pricing
Available on qualifying Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Premium requires a separate Microsoft Copilot add-on licence. ($30 per user/month)
AI is an assistant, not an authority. Always verify what matters.