How AI fits into spreadsheets
There are two ways AI reaches your spreadsheet. The first is embedded: Microsoft 365 Copilot lives inside Excel and Google’s Gemini lives inside Sheets, so they can read your actual cells, ranges, and tables and act on them directly. The second is companion: you keep working in your spreadsheet and use a general chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude on the side, copying data and formulas back and forth. Embedded tools win on convenience and context; companion chatbots win on cost, flexibility, and raw reasoning. Most business users end up combining both.
Excel Copilot vs Google Sheets Gemini
Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel is the strongest at working with structured tables. It can generate formulas against your named columns, suggest pivot-style summaries, highlight trends, and explain what a complex formula does — all without you leaving the grid. It shines when your data is already in a clean Excel table.
Gemini in Google Sheets offers similar in-context help — formula creation, data organisation, and a side panel that can reference the sheet — and integrates with the rest of Workspace (Docs, Gmail, Slides). It is the natural choice for teams already living in Google.
Both are paid add-ons tied to a business subscription, and both are best for tasks that genuinely need to see your live data: column-aware formulas, in-place cleaning, and quick summaries.
ChatGPT and Claude as spreadsheet companions
A general chatbot is often the better choice for formula craftsmanship and analysis. You can describe exactly what you want — “a formula that returns the latest non-empty value in a row” — and get an explained answer to paste back. ChatGPT’s data-analysis mode (and Claude with file uploads) goes further: upload a CSV and it will run real Python to clean, pivot, chart, and find anomalies, then hand you the results and the code. The trade-off is that the data leaves your spreadsheet, so use enterprise or API tiers for anything confidential.
Which to use by task
For formulas you paste into any sheet, a chatbot is fastest and free. For formulas and cleaning that must reference your live data, use the embedded tool (Copilot for Excel, Gemini for Sheets). For heavy analysis, charts, and anomaly detection on a dataset, ChatGPT’s data-analysis mode or Claude with an upload is the most powerful. For regulated or confidential business data, stay inside your Microsoft or Google tenant with Copilot or Gemini, or anonymise before using a consumer chatbot. Whatever the tool, verify the output — AI is a fast assistant, not a final auditor of your numbers.