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Microsoft has released a series of new features for Excel, including an update to Copilot AI that promises to better understand plain English commands.
The smarter Copilot is available now in the Windows and Mac versions of Excel, with Microsoft claiming the AI is now better able to help with more complex workbooks.
Previously, for example, Copilot would assume you were talking about the table nearest to the selected cell if you asked it to manipulate data in a table. Now you can issue commands such as “sort the table on the top right” or “suggest charts for the table in sheet 2” and it will find the relevant table.
To make sure Copilot has fully understood what table you’re referring to, it will highlight in pink the data the AI is working with, giving you an instant visual cue that it’s selected the correct data.
The AI can also better infer which data you’re referring to from natural language queries. So, for example, instead of asking it to work out the “average of figures in column F” you could ask it work out the “average sale price of a car” and the AI will hopefully work it out by looking at table headers, for example.
That’s not to say manually highlighting the relevant data doesn’t have its advantages. For example, you can tell the AI to “colour the row I’ve selected in red” or “apply colour scales to the selected column” to save having to describe the data in question.
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Other new features in the June update include what Microsoft is calling “value tokens”. If a spreadsheet contains special data such as currencies or stock prices (selected from the Data tab), then a little icon will now appear alongside the value in the cell to differentiate it from “ordinary” data.
Excel for web is getting more AI friendly too, so that when you type “=” in a cell, a pop-up window appears beneath the cell allowing you to ask Copilot to generate a formula using natural language instead of having to know the required syntax.
And finally, if you receive shared files to a personal Microsoft account, you can now view them on Android devices without having to sign in. However, you will still need to enter credentials to leave comments.
“This means that you can now confidently share documents, worksheets, and presentations, from your personal Microsoft account, and make them available for review with others while giving recipients an effortless way to open and view the content on their mobile devices,” said Microsoft’s blog, rather congratulating itself for needlessly making your life more difficult until now.
