Looking for the Best AI Tools for Excel? Here Are My 6 Favorite Options

At present, knowledge wrangling is an important talent in nearly each function, making Excel an important talent. However, the times of mendacity about your Excel proficiency are over; as an alternative, you should utilize one of the best AI instruments available on the market for Excel.

Whereas analysts and knowledge scientists want critical experience, I’m simply somebody who recurrently has to export knowledge from a number of instruments and leverage Excel to report on advertising and marketing efficiency throughout totally different channels.

Since I take advantage of this system a lot, I’ve turn into fairly adept at extra difficult Excel options, however there’s little question it could actually nonetheless be time-consuming and tough.

So, I wished to see how all of the current advances in AI may make these hours spent in spreadsheets simpler and the way a lot time I may save.

I went and located a few of the finest AI instruments for Excel, examined them, and compiled my findings under.

How I Examined the Greatest AI Instruments and Plugins for Excel

There’s rather a lot you can do in Excel. I take advantage of every thing from easy formulation to extra superior macros. I examined the instruments and plugins for:

• Accuracy: Usually, I’m coping with actually large knowledge units, as I’m positive lots of you might be. These could make calculations and formulation complicated, so an Excel instrument must be able to dealing with duties with accuracy.
• Ease of Use: There’s nothing worse than a complicated instrument. Excel itself might be complicated sufficient, so a transparent interface and good UX ought to be a given right here.
• Velocity and Reliability: We flip to AI to be extra environment friendly. A instrument must be fast and dependable if I’m going to take a position money and time in it.
• Vary of Options: There’s rather a lot AI can do in Excel. The extra incorporates a single instrument has, the higher.

For testing functions, I downloaded a pattern spreadsheet containing workplace provides gross sales knowledge for use in each instrument, eliminating doable variables.

The Greatest AI Instruments and Plugins for Excel

1. Ajelix

Pricing: Free plans can be found. Customary plans price $9 monthly. Enterprise plans price $40 monthly, and enterprise plus plans price $200 monthly.

Despite the fact that I work in Excel and Google Sheets rather a lot, I’ve by no means been nice at remembering difficult formulation and capabilities. With Ajelix, I don’t need to.

Inside two minutes of leaping into Ajelix, I used to be in a position to sort out what I used to be attempting to do with my knowledge, and the instrument spat out a number of formulation choices for me to attempt.

After I first opened the instrument, I received a very nice, user-friendly dashboard. Since I are likely to wrestle with formulation errors, I clicked on the “Generate Method” possibility.

In my pattern sheet, I wished a fast technique to learn the way many pencils had been bought. So I gave the Ajelix instrument the gist of what I wished with the immediate, “Sum the variety of items in Column E when the worth of Column D is in pencils:”

Ajelix immediately returned a formulation with a useful “copy” button. It additionally gave me an alternative choice to attempt if the primary one didn’t work.

Then, I noticed the “Chat with AI” button and determined to attempt it out.

The button took me to a chat with all of the details about my formulation already loaded. I requested the AI assistant to broaden my formulation to incorporate the variety of desks bought as properly, and immediately obtained the formulation.

The formulation labored completely. However to check the AI assistant just a little extra, I advised the instrument that the formulation didn’t work. I immediately obtained one other technique to attempt to obtain what I wanted.

What I appreciated: Ajelix is a user-friendly instrument that appears to be geared towards the common enterprise person relatively than an information professional. Along with AI help, you may also use the enterprise intelligence (BI) performance for superior knowledge visualization.

It’s value noting you’ll must pay to make use of Ajelix long run to AI performance. However pricing is fairly cheap at $6 monthly for the Customary plan or $20 monthly for a marketing strategy.

2. GPTExcel

Pricing: Free plans can be found. Paid plans price $6 monthly.

GPTExcel is one other useful and cost-efficient instrument that makes use of AI to assist customers streamline how they use Excel.

It has a formulation generator, however I additionally wished to check out the Scripts characteristic. With the Script instrument, you possibly can clarify what you need your script to do, or you possibly can reverse the method by offering GPTExcel with a script and having the instrument to clarify it to you.

In my pattern spreadsheet, I made a decision I wished to generate automation the place any row the place the Gross sales worth in Column G exceeds $200, the row can be highlighted.

Right here’s what I gave GPTExcel and what it supplied for me:

I went again to my Excel sheet with the script and put it to the take a look at.

After opening the VBA (Visible Primary for Purposes — a Microsoft programming language) editor in Excel and working the macro, right here had been the outcomes:

The primary time I ran the macro, I received an error, however that was on my half.

I failed to offer GPTExcel the right title of the sheet, and it assumed the sheet was named the default Sheet 1. However my sheet was referred to as SalesOrders, so I needed to alter the script to get it to run.

As soon as it did, I discovered the script was not very subtle and had highlighted the column headers within the sheet as properly.

If you realize Excel, any points with the output can be fairly apparent so that you can repair, however somebody unfamiliar with the software program may wrestle. Additionally, like many generative AI instruments, it’s essential be extraordinarily particular together with your request to get the suitable output the primary time.

What I like: GPTExcel is extraordinarily straightforward to make use of, and supplies a useful pop-up information with do’s and don’ts to keep away from frequent errors. Pricing could be very low at $6.99 monthly, however this nonetheless limits you to 100 queries per day (versus 4 on the free plan).

Total, this can be a useful gizmo for rapidly producing macros, and SQL consultants may discover that characteristic helpful, too.

3. Formularizer

Pricing: Free plans can be found, providing 100 utilization credit monthly.

At one level in my profession, I had a whole doc full of template formulation to rapidly copy and paste into Excel. However I nonetheless needed to undergo them every time and alter out cell ranges, values, and so forth. to match my wants.

With Formularizer, I wished to see if a textual content immediate can be faster and simpler.

(Plus, to be trustworthy, generally I come throughout a formulation in one among my very own sheets and overlook what it does and why I put it there.)

Formularizer enables you to paste in a formulation and get a written rationalization of what it does.

I used a immediate to generate the formulation I wanted and used phrases like “Column E” as a result of I couldn’t add a spreadsheet for the instrument to investigate. This characteristic is presently in Beta.

Right here’s what I supplied:

“Create a formulation that calculates the full for Column E because it corresponds to the values in Column B.”

My aim was to calculate items bought within the “East” area from my pattern knowledge. Right here’s what Formularizer gave me:

That is what I pasted into Excel, which labored completely: =SUMIF(B:B, “East”, E:E).

Now, I wished to see if Formularizer may clarify a formulation to me. I gave it this formulation:

“=INDEX(C:C, MATCH(MAX(SUMIF(C:C, C:C, G:G)), SUMIF(C:C, C:C, G:G), 0)).” The formulation reveals me the rep with the very best variety of gross sales and returns that individual’s title. I pasted it into the explainer instrument in Formularizer.

It did an important job, contemplating it had no context to work with. I used to be impressed by the abstract.

What I like: Formularizer is quick and very easy to make use of, because of its intuitive chat interface. The free model could be very helpful for rapidly producing difficult formulation if you realize your knowledge properly. Nonetheless, solely the paid model will permit you to add a sheet to be analyzed.

4. Promptloop

Pricing: Free plans can be found. Particular person plans price $49 monthly. Firm plan pricing is offered upon request.

Promotloop makes use of AI fashions to care for a couple of frequent duties in Excel. You’ll be able to immediate the AI to categorize textual content knowledge, reply questions based mostly on info in your knowledge set, and create dummy knowledge so you possibly can take a look at your sheet.

After I first logged in, I used to be requested concerning the process I wanted to finish.

I defined I wanted assist cleansing gross sales knowledge, as knowledge cleansing is likely one of the core functionalities of Promptloop — however I may even have skipped this and gone straight to the dashboard.

Since I used to be on the free plan, my knowledge was restricted to 25 rows as soon as I hooked up my Excel workbook.

For the follow-up query, I defined how I wanted to wash the information, saying, “I wish to categorize the information into product sorts from row D. So Pencil, Pen Set, and Binder ought to be categorized as Small whereas Desk ought to be categorized as massive.”

Promptloop then gave me a possibility to make clear the columns and the anticipated output.

It then in a short time processed the duty and supplied me with an output file to obtain.

After hitting the “Obtain” button, it took me a few additional steps to really get the information and sheet, nevertheless it did work as anticipated.

What I like: Promptloop could be very helpful when you’ve got a variety of text-based knowledge to type by. Responses to surveys, particularly these the place the person can enter free-form textual content relatively than choice choices, are one instance of the place Promptloop may are available actually useful.

That being mentioned, I wasn’t as keen on the experienceon this instrument in contrast with others on this record. There have been a couple of pointless steps and clicks alongside the best way.

5. ChatGPT

With the release of GPT.4, ChatGPT is extra highly effective than ever. Having had frustrations with ChatGPT and spreadsheet-based prompts beforehand, I wished to see what modified.

First, I requested ChatGPT what it may do if I gave it a spreadsheet to work with. It got here again with solutions, together with knowledge evaluation, cleansing, visualization, transformation, formulation, and automation. So, I put it to the take a look at.

First, I had it create a pivot desk, offering no different instruction.

Here’s what it supplied to me, which I used to be in a position to obtain as a CSV file:

Subsequent, I requested it to visualise the information within the pivot desk. It did a fairly nice job delivering a color-coded bar graph:

Lastly, I requested it to assist me with a macro utilizing the next immediate:

“Are you able to give me a macro I may run on this knowledge in Excel for Mac that permit’s me preserve a working monitor of the full items bought by every rep?”

In response, it gave me a script that it claimed would create “a abstract of the full items bought by every consultant and output the outcome to a brand new sheet named “Abstract.” In case you run this macro periodically, it’s going to replace the totals accordingly.”

I attempted it and hit just a little snag, however I went again to Chat-GPT and let it know which line was highlighted within the Debug Device. It instantly gave me a brand new output that labored completely.

What I like: Since ChatGPT now has such superior language capabilities, even a whole Excel newbie may use it to finish duties for the instrument rapidly and simply.

Whilst you want the paid model at $20 monthly to entry this degree of potential, it was one of the easy experiences on this record.

6. Method Bot

Formula Bot handles a number of knowledge and Excel-related duties. For a lot of options, you will need to set up Method Bot as an add-on to both Excel or Google Sheets to make use of its capabilities, however some less complicated, generative AI options can be found through the browser app.

To start, I chosen the “Free Evaluation” characteristic on the dashboard to see what it might do with no instruction.

First, I had so as to add my knowledge. I may add an Excel file or select from some fascinating connector choices like Google Sheets or Fb Advertisements:

After importing my spreadsheet, the one possibility I may see was the “Begin Chat” button.

I requested the chat to offer me “Which area has the very best gross sales?” from my pattern sheet. Disappointingly, I used to be given a CSV file to obtain with the reply, and it had simply grouped the unit knowledge into areas with out giving me a direct reply.

I made a decision to attempt one of many different AI options to see if I fared any higher.

This time, I wished to add a PDF and convert it to an Excel spreadsheet.

I uploaded a PDF containing knowledge to see how properly it might translate to an Excel sheet.

(Be aware: Method Bot additionally permits you to paste textual content to be changed into a spreadsheet, which is useful.)

Method Bot asks you to pick a few choices after importing your PDF. It additionally recommends that you do not attempt to flip non-table knowledge from the file into Excel knowledge or attempt to mix a number of tables into one sheet in your workbook.

Changing the PDF file solely took a few seconds and the spreadsheet was prepared for obtain proper from the identical display screen.

After I downloaded and opened the Excel file, the information was excellent and prepared to be used.

What I like: The interface of Method Bot is and the instrument is comparatively easy to make use of. You don’t must sift by dozens of tutorials to determine how the platform works. Nonetheless, it did really feel just a little glitchy right here and there.

The PDF to Excel characteristic was spectacular, and with the paid add-on ($9-13 monthly) proper inside your Excel workbooks, a few of the superior options like sentiment evaluation or textual content classification can be fascinating to see.

Making the Most of Excel

Of all of the AI instruments for Excel I examined, two stood out as my favorites. ChatGPT turned out to be far more adept than I assumed, particularly when it got here to knowledge visualization. It’s a system that I already use, and lots of entrepreneurs fall in the identical class. In case you’re hesitant about utilizing a brand new system, you possibly can’t beat ChatGPT.

Nonetheless, in case your on the lookout for a extra strong program targeted on excel, go along with Ajelix. This system was particularly useful for producing formulation that I don’t have memorized. Past that, Ajelix’s AI chat allowed me to reply questions with ease.

If Excel is part of your job, testing these AI instruments can prevent time and assist you complement any gaps in your information.