How to Use AI with Excel: 6 Prompts for Beginners
Stop searching for formulas. Describe what you want in plain language and let AI write it — with copy-paste prompts for the 6 most common spreadsheet jobs.
Always Describe Your Columns First
This is the one habit that separates prompts that work from prompts that waste your time. The AI cannot see your spreadsheet — it has no idea what is in column C. If you do not tell it, it will guess, and the formula it gives you will point at the wrong cells. Start every spreadsheet prompt by naming your columns and saying which row your data starts on.
| A | B | C | D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Product | Units | Price |
| 2 | 2026-03-01 | Keyboard | 12 | 24.90 |
| 3 | 2026-03-01 | Mouse | 30 | 11.50 |
| 4 | 2026-03-02 | Keyboard | 8 | 24.90 |
| 5 | 2026-03-02 | Monitor | 3 | 149.00 |
Describe the Formula in Plain Language
You do not need to know whether you want SUMIF, SUMPRODUCT or a pivot table. Describe the result you want in normal words and let the AI pick the function. Say what you want calculated, from which columns, and under what condition.
=C2*D2| A | B | C | D | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Date | Product | Units | Price | Total |
| 2 | 2026-03-01 | Keyboard | 12 | 24.90 | 298.80 |
| 3 | 2026-03-01 | Mouse | 30 | 11.50 | 345.00 |
| 4 | 2026-03-02 | Keyboard | 8 | 24.90 | 199.20 |
| 5 | 2026-03-02 | Monitor | 3 | 149.00 | 447.00 |
Paste a Formula You Do Not Understand
This works in the other direction too, and it is the fastest way to learn. If you inherited a spreadsheet full of formulas nobody documented, paste one in and ask what it does. Ask for a plain-language explanation rather than a technical one.
"This formula returns #N/A. Here is the formula: [paste]. My lookup column contains text and the other sheet contains numbers. What is wrong and how do I fix it?"
Giving the AI the error code and what your data looks like turns a guess into a diagnosis.
Clean Up Messy Data
Inconsistent capitals, stray spaces and dates typed five different ways are the most common reason a formula "does not work" — the data is fine to a human and unreadable to Excel. Describe the mess and ask for the cleanup steps.
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer | City | Signup date |
| 2 | ana lópez | madrid | 01/03/2026 |
| 3 | ANA LÓPEZ | Madrid | 2026-03-01 |
| 4 | Ana Lopez | MADRID | 1 Mar 2026 |
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Customer | City | Signup date |
| 2 | Ana López | Madrid | 2026-03-01 |
| 3 | Ana López | Madrid | 2026-03-01 |
| 4 | Ana López | Madrid | 2026-03-01 |
Split One Column Into Two
Full names in one cell, addresses that should be street and city, product codes that hide a category — splitting a column is one of the most common beginner tasks and one of the least obvious to do by hand.
| A | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Full name |
| 2 | Ana López |
| 3 | Marc Ferrer |
| 4 | Lucía Sanz |
=TEXTBEFORE(A2," ")| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Full name | First name | Last name |
| 2 | Ana López | Ana | López |
| 3 | Marc Ferrer | Marc | Ferrer |
| 4 | Lucía Sanz | Lucía | Sanz |
Summarise Without Learning Pivot Tables
Pivot tables are the thing beginners avoid longest. You can skip them entirely at first: describe the summary you want in words and ask for a formula-based version, which is easier to understand and easier to fix when it breaks.
=SUMIF($B$2:$B$500,G2,$E$2:$E$500)| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Product | Units sold | Revenue |
| 2 | Keyboard | 20 | 498.00 |
| 3 | Mouse | 30 | 345.00 |
| 4 | Monitor | 3 | 447.00 |
"Give me the exact steps to build a pivot table from this data showing revenue by product by month, in Excel for Windows. Number each click."
Asking for numbered clicks and naming your Excel version avoids instructions written for a different menu layout.
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