The best AI tools for Excel

For some of us, Microsoft Excel is one of the most dreaded of work apps — spreadsheets are dry at best, and they’re often complicated, especially for tasks like science, engineering, and accounting. We need any help we can get, and that’s where generative AI can come to the rescue.

The best AI tools for Excel

Superior AI tools find the pain points in Excel and either shrink them or eliminate them entirely. A common theme is formulas, which are among the core reasons for using Microsoft’s software, but they aren’t necessarily intuitive for the average person.

• Copilot in Excel
• Ajelix
• Arcwise AI
• AI Excel Bot
• PromptLoop

Copilot in Excel

You may not need to get any third-party AI tools for Excel. Microsoft has created its own AI tool, called Copilot in Excel. The only downside is that this add-on can only be obtained through specific Microsoft 365 plans. Enterprise customers will need an E3 or E5 license for either Microsoft 365 or Office 365. You can also get access with a Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium plan.

If you can access it, though, it is a beauty. It can analyze information within your spreadsheets, filter data for you, generate formulas, and more. All through natural language prompts.

Ajelix

Ajelix casts a pretty wide net, promising help with tasks like formulas, templates, translation, and visualizing data. It’ll even generate VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) scripts, optimize your own VBA code, and explain scripts to you if you’re confused about something. Not too surprisingly, it can also explain standard Excel formulas in case your needs aren’t quite that advanced.

Many functions are available for free, but you’ll need to upgrade to a Standard or Business subscription if you want unlimited requests and access to some key features, such as an Excel add-in. Only Business users get things like Google Sheets integration and a one-click report builder.

You can use Ajelix for free, but the free tier has many limitations. Paid pricing starts at $6 per month.

Arcwise AI

You’ll have to form your own bridge between Excel and Google Sheets to get this to work, and the overall Arcwise platform is aimed at mid- to large-scale businesses. Once you’re golden, though, Arcwise AI lets you ask plain-language questions about the company data it centralizes, such as “What are the top 10 states by sales?” or “What are the most frequent types of delays for each carrier?” You can publish the answers back to Sheets, or else, Looker, Tableau, or PowerBI.

If you’re prepared, you’re allowed to scrutinize the technical details of the AI model you’ve been given. That’s important, because while customized models are free during the Arcwise AI beta, you still have to pay a per-token fee for processing, and that model cost could rocket as high as $50,000 per year once the beta is over. We weren’t kidding about scale.

AI Excel Bot

AI Excel Bot only does two things, ultimately: generate formulas and VBA code or explain it to you. If that’s all you need, however, it’s a lot cheaper than tools like Ajelix or Arcwise. Additionally, a Chrome extension works with the web version of Excel.

The basic version of Excel Bot is free, but you can only use it five times per month, and some features are kept out of bounds. You’ll need to pay for a Pro plan to get full features and unlimited use, the good news being that it’s priced at $6 per month or $50 per year.

PromptLoop

PromptLoop is similar in concept to Arcwise AI but supports Excel directly, and it reaches beyond your company’s own data to crawl websites and generate new research. Web content is the focus, in fact, and the developer of the tool claims that it’s four times faster than technologies like ChatGPT or Google Gemini.

Pricing schemes are somewhat unusual. If you like, you can try PromptLoop on a pay-as-you-go basis, with daily usage caps. Individual and Enterprise customers meanwhile get unlimited access for a monthly fee, including experimental AI models. The Enterprise tier offers perks like white-glove onboarding and support.

If you need some extra help from AI tools, we also have lists of the best AI tools for PowerPoint, productivity, and business.