AI Can Summarize Your Excel Spreadsheets For You. Here’s How

I admit I’m not the most Excel savvy, hence the need to find an easier way to navigate the spreadsheet software. I thought artificial intelligence would make the job a bit easier, but after three failed attempts to add ChatGPT for Microsoft Excel to my software (including clearing my cache and cookies), I discovered GPT Excel.

GPT Excel is an AI assistant with over 500,000 users, purpose-built for Excel and Google Sheets. With free and paid ($7 per month) versions available, GPT Excel AI features include Chat, Generate and Understand Formulas, Task Automation Generator, SQL, Data Validation and Filtering, and the ability to generate table templates.

While this isn’t a particularly advanced tool, it makes up for it in the lack of flashy add-ons, providing simple and concise tools. That makes sense for something as robust as data (and its algorithms).

Since I wanted to summarize and understand the data from the Excel file, I focused on the Formulas page of the platform. There you can enter your data and then generate or explain it.

How to Use GPT Excel to Summarize Your Data

This was my approach when trying to summarize the data from my spreadsheet.

1. Create an account using your email or Google account. This will activate the free version of the platform. Once you are on your account homepage, navigate to and click on Formulas.
2. Select Microsoft Excel from the dropdown menu, then go to the Explanation tab at the top of the page. This will change the text of the copy and paste box below.
3. This will generate your result in the text box below. You can choose to reset the copy and enter new data or copy this data and paste it back into the Excel sheet.
4. Scroll down the page and check out the Best Practices tab for 12 tips on what to do and what not to do when entering data.

Should You Use GPT Excel to Summarize Your Data?

Look, artificial intelligence is a new, hot topic. Its rapid growth speaks of popularity and success, but it also speaks of the reality of oversaturation and overwhelm.

However, I can’t shake the feeling that while the AI-generated organizational tools are designed to reduce repetitive tasks and the time it takes to troubleshoot issues, you’ll likely spend just as much time navigating the incredibly specific aspects of each product to find the best one for you.

While articles — like the one you’re reading now — are meant to answer questions in advance, word of mouth is no more important than experience. Tools, whether literal or digital, will always depend on individual preferences and opinions. My personal thoughts on GPT Excel boil down to three things:

• Familiarity: Microsoft Excel launched in 1982 (under the name Multiplan) as a basic, yet reliable, spreadsheet software program — one that has steadily evolved to meet consumer needs. So when I found myself browsing through various Excel-focused AI tools 40 years later, my preference naturally fell on the one with the word “Excel” in it. My preference for AI is the one with fewer gimmicks and a simpler, streamlined approach.
• Simplicity: GPT Excel has six different tool functions on the home page, including a AI chat button to help with a spreadsheet question. I went to the Formulas tab for generating and understanding data. The typography and user design are laid out simply. Learning design integrations adds time to using the tool — again defeating the purpose of the tool itself.
• Costs:The only difference between the free and paid plans of GPT Excel is the priority access to customer service and the AI ​​chatbot. I read this as the ability to engage in a dialogue with someone/something. Since I was only using the tool to summarize my data, I was comfortable with this trade-off. The free version of GPT Excel offers enough without adding another subscription service to your list.

If you are not convinced about GPT Excel, there are many more options you can try

Numerous AI apps can summarize your data. While I ended up turning to ChatGPT to summarize my Excel data, these tools claim to offer the same services to their target audience, which in some cases is the same as ChatGPT.

• You know: With student and teacher subscriptions available, this tool is geared toward education. It has the ability to convert your Excel sheet data into notes and flashcards, and also tests you on the information you enter — all within 30 seconds. Knowt has a seven-day free trial, and monthly subscriptions range from $2 to $13 per month.
• Ajelix-BI:This app positions itself as an all-in-one platform with 15 productivity tools, 10 of which are Excel AI tools. Its target audience is “busy people,” including small business owners, non-technical teams, and Mac and Windows users. The platform claims to reduce problem-solving time by 50% to reveal smarter insights on data, faster. Ajelix BI has a free plan with limited access, all the way up to an unlimited Business Plus plan at $200 per month.
• Julius AI: An AI tool built for dense data populations. It can turn your data into visualizations, provide answers about your data, perform forecasting, solve problems in mathematics, physics and chemistry and of course perform analysis and summarization. Julius AI is available in both a free and upgraded plan version.
• Rows: This app bills itself as your “personal data analyst,” with a focus on analyzing, summarizing, and transforming data. Its website says that Row packs the power of ChatGPT without any scripts, add-ons, or code. It also says it has the ability to provide insights, classify and tag text, translate text into any language, and run the initial stages of marketing campaigns. Row’s pricing plans range from free to $30 per month, billed monthly or annually.

Although my first attempt with ChatGPT for Excel failed, I have since found numerous alternatives. Some of them are incredibly purposeful and clear in their explanation of the problem they are trying to solve.

Wherever you find yourself in your journey to summarize data, I hope the spreadsheet hassle is now a little easier to handle.