Microsoft’s Excel Just Got Smarter: The New Copilot Function

All in AI. Microsoft has integrated AI (Copilot) to its Office products.

I’m thrilled to share that Excel has added COPILOT directly into formulas!

=COPILOT(prompt,[context],…)

This deceptively simple syntax brings the power of large language models (LLMs) into your spreadsheet logic—unlocking a whole new era of financial planning, analysis, and data modeling.

copilot-excel-demo1 Microsoft's Excel Just Got Smarter: The New Copilot Function Artificial Intelligence Engineering excel Microsoft Office Software Engineering

The Copilot Function in Excel to Invoke AI

Why It’s a Game-Changer for FP&A and Data Analysis

FP&A stands for Financial Planning & Analysis. It’s like the company’s “financial brain,” responsible for helping management plan how money is spent, forecast future income and expenses, analyze the company’s financial health, and provide decision-making advice to help the company spend wisely and earn more.

For years, Excel has been the go-to tool for financial professionals. While it’s unmatched in calculation, it has always required manual effort for tasks like summarization, classification, and contextual interpretation. Now, COPILOT bridges that gap.

With natural-language prompts, you can analyze, summarize, and even generate data—all inside your workbook. FP&A teams can spend less time wrangling data and more time focusing on insights and strategy.

What You Can Do with COPILOT

Here are just a few examples of how it can transform workflows:

Summarize text — Turn long-form input into concise, actionable insight

=COPILOT("Summarize this into a paragraph", A1:A100)

Analyze sentiment — Quickly detect customer or stakeholder sentiment from survey results

=COPILOT("What's the sentiment?", A1)

Categorize information — Classify data automatically without complex formulas or VBA

=COPILOT("Categorize", B1:B10, "into", A1:A4)

Review tone — Ensure professional communication across reports and presentations

=COPILOT("Is the tone professional?", A1)

Beyond Analysis: Synthetic Data Generation

One of the most exciting applications is generating synthetic data. Imagine instantly creating test datasets, scenario variations, or anonymized samples—all with a single formula. This opens up huge possibilities for stress-testing models and preparing what-if scenarios without endless manual setup.

The Future of Excel

With COPILOT, Excel isn’t just a spreadsheet anymore—it’s becoming an intelligent workspace. Financial modeling gains a new dimension of speed and flexibility. Data analysis becomes more intuitive and less formula-heavy.

In short, this update makes Excel not only more powerful but also more human-friendly.

Final thought: COPILOT doesn’t just extend Excel—it redefines it. Whether you’re in FP&A, financial modeling, or data analytics, this is a feature you’ll want to explore immediately. Be creative, there are so many things you can try with this simple COPILOT function. You could just ask it to perform data processing, analysis or even generating a report for you!