Excel Copilot transforms how you work with data. Instead of writing complex formulas or building pivot tables manually, you describe what you want in plain English.

Requirements

Copilot in Excel works best when your data is formatted as a Table (Ctrl+T). It needs structured data with clear column headers. Copilot supports .xlsx files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint.

Asking Questions About Your Data

Open the Copilot panel and ask natural-language questions:

• "What were the top 5 products by revenue last quarter?"
• "Show me the trend in customer churn over the past 12 months"
• "Which sales region had the highest growth rate?"
• "Are there any outliers in this expense report?"

Copilot will generate answers, often with charts or highlighted cells.

Generating Formulas

Instead of memorizing VLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, or complex nested IFs:

• "Add a column that calculates the profit margin for each product"
• "Create a formula that flags any expense over $5,000"
• "Calculate the year-over-year growth rate for each category"

Copilot writes the formula, explains what it does, and inserts it into your sheet.

Creating Charts & Visualizations

• "Create a bar chart showing monthly revenue by region"
• "Build a line chart of our website traffic over the past year"
• "Make a pie chart of market share by competitor"

Data Cleaning & Formatting

• "Highlight all duplicate entries in column A"
• "Sort this table by date, newest first"
• "Split the full name column into first name and last name"
• "Convert all dates to YYYY-MM-DD format"

Advanced Analysis

• "Run a correlation analysis between marketing spend and leads generated"
• "Create a pivot table showing total sales by product category and quarter"
• "Forecast next quarter's revenue based on historical data"

Limitations to Know

• Copilot works with the data in your current sheet — it can't pull data from other workbooks unless referenced
• Very large datasets (100K+ rows) may slow down responses
• Complex multi-step analyses may need to be broken into separate prompts
• Always verify formula results, especially for financial calculations