Your Spreadsheet Just Got a Brain
Today we are getting a glimpse into how AI is reshaping spreadsheets, and I love it!
It is really a super simple way to automate a lot of your processes, even if they are not really numbers related.
I will show it in Google Gemini, it is not as easy in Microsoft Copilot, but I’m sure it’s coming there to.
Let me show you how it works.
From Categories to Creativity
In the video I show two examples:
One with numbers
One with text
First Example – Expenses
Say these are expenses from my bank.
I’m going to use the magical AI function to find the business name for each and to have them categorised.
You just type =AI("your prompt") into a cell.
I ask: Which company is this expense with?
It reads the line and returns Uber (or whatever it recognises).
I spent so many hours of my life doing text functions to extract names from statement lines or URLs, oh my!
I can drag that across all rows.
Then I ask: Suggest four expense categories.
It replies: Transport, Food, Subscription, Accommodation.
Then: Categorise these expenses.
AI categorises them across the rows.
If I change one value (e.g. to “Officeworks”), the dependent cells update — and I can regenerate them.
Finally, I ask it to: Write a limerick about the expenses this month.
It does. It’s hilarious.
Second Example – Feedback Summarising
This is not just for numbers, but also for text.
In this example, I copied 87 rows of feedback from one of my sessions.
I ask: What are the top three things people like about my sessions?
It reads the 87 entries and replies: Enthusiasm, knowledge, practical examples.
Fast and brilliant!
So What Are We Seeing?
We can now use AI in a spreadsheet to generate information with reason and creativity, not just with static formulas.
Things like:
Categorising data
Summarising insights
Drafting social posts or comment replies
Spotting outliers
Identifying sentiment
And tons more
We’re not just using a formula anymore.
We’re using a cell that can think.
Come Join the Bootcamp
Want to do AI with me?
At the end of July, we’re running an AI Bootcamp in person in Melbourne.
We’ll go from beginner level through to advanced prompting, choosing free and paid tools, and even creating some automations and agents!
If you want to be there, go to www.inbal.com.au/events
—-
Inbal Rodnay
Guiding Firms in Adopting AI and Automation
Keynote speaker | AI Workshops | Executive briefings | Consulting CIO
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