The short answer
The best AI for spreadsheets in November 2026 is Microsoft's Copilot in Excel, because it edits your workbook directly with formulas, charts and PivotTables, offers Allow editing, Plan and Chat only modes, and gained a clean data skill in October 2026. It comes with Microsoft 365 Personal, Family (owner only), Premium and Pro, or a Microsoft 365 Copilot work licence. Gemini in Google Sheets is the runner-up for Workspace teams. Anthropic's Claude Free is the best free option: it analyses an uploaded sheet with code and returns a file.
| Our pick | Copilot in Excel (Microsoft): edits workbooks on Windows, Mac and the web |
|---|---|
| Runner-up | Gemini in Google Sheets: Ask Gemini side panel, builds and edits whole spreadsheets |
| Best free option | Claude Free: upload .xlsx or .csv, code execution and file creation; ChatGPT Free is the alternative |
| Plan you need for Excel | Microsoft 365 Personal, Family (owner only), Premium or Pro; Microsoft 365 Copilot for work accounts |
| Plan you need for Sheets (build and edit) | Google AI Pro or Ultra; Workspace Business or Enterprise Standard and Plus (launched in the US; 29 languages since June 2026) |
| Watch out | Gemini chat history in Sheets is lost when you reload; generated charts do not update with new data |
The short version: which spreadsheet AI to pick
Pick the AI that lives in the spreadsheet you already use. If your work is in Excel, Copilot in Excel is our pick: it changes the workbook itself, so the formulas and PivotTables it builds stay in the file for your colleagues. If your team works in Google Sheets, use Gemini in Google Sheets, which since April 2026 can build and edit entire spreadsheets from a prompt. If you have no paid plan, upload the file to Claude Free for analysis and a cleaned file, then bring the results back into your sheet.
The difference matters. A chat assistant analyses a copy of your file and gives you an answer. A spreadsheet assistant edits the real workbook, which is faster and keeps everything in one place, but means you must check what it changed.
Our pick: Copilot in Excel
Why it wins
Microsoft's help centre says Copilot in Excel "helps you build and edit workbooks" with tables, charts, PivotTables and formulas. It can edit worksheets, generate data and formulas, create charts, PivotTables and shapes, identify insights, highlight, sort and filter data, search the web with citations, import data from other workbooks and run custom skills. You open it from the Copilot icon in the lower-right corner of Excel.
The three modes are what make it safe for real work. Allow editing, the default, edits the workbook directly through a step-by-step plan you can watch. Plan proposes an approach for you to review before anything changes. Chat only gives insights without touching the workbook. You can stop or pause a task at any time with the Stop button. In October 2026 Microsoft rolled out a clean data skill that scans a workbook for duplicates, inconsistent formatting and wrong data types and recommends fixes you approve one by one. Accounting skills (Frontier programme first) and an interactive canvas that turns workbook data into a live report (Insiders first) are rolling out worldwide in November.
Edit, chat and plan all work on Windows, Mac and the web. On iPad you get chat and plan, on iPhone and Android chat only, with edit mode rolling out on iPad and iPhone.
Who it suits
Anyone who works in Excel every week: finance, operations, sales operations and analysts. At home, Copilot in Excel is included in Microsoft 365 Personal, Premium and Pro, and in Family only for the subscription owner. At work you need a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence, which gives you enterprise data protection: your prompts, responses and company data are not used to train foundation models.
The catch
Copilot may not be included in your subscription or may be switched off by your organisation, so check your licence first. The free consumer Copilot app is a chat assistant, not Copilot inside Excel. Because Allow editing changes the real file, work on a copy until you trust it, and use Plan mode for anything important. Read our Microsoft Copilot guide and ChatGPT vs Copilot.
Runner-up: Gemini in Google Sheets
Why it is excellent
Open the side panel with Ask Gemini at the top right of a spreadsheet. Google's help page lists what it can do: create tables and formulas, generate data analysis and insights, build charts and graphs, summarise emails and Drive files, and analyse large BigQuery datasets. It can also apply conditional formatting, create PivotTables, dropdowns and checkboxes, sort and filter, find and replace, and freeze rows and columns. To write a formula, type = in a cell and press Ctrl + Alt + G on Windows or ChromeOS, or Command + Ctrl + G on a Mac.
On 22 April 2026 Google announced that Gemini in Sheets can "build and edit entire spreadsheets using simple natural language", including building a spreadsheet from one prompt and editing existing models with PivotTables and complex formulas.
Who it suits
Teams on Google Workspace and anyone who already pays for Google AI Pro or Ultra. The build-and-edit features are listed for Business Standard and Plus, Enterprise Standard and Plus, the AI Expanded Access and AI Ultra Access add-ons, Google AI Pro for Education, and Google AI Pro and Ultra.
The catch
The build-and-edit features launched in the US in English only on 22 April 2026; on 18 June Google added 28 more languages, including German, French and Spanish, but has not announced other countries, so check that it appears for your account. Gemini works best with native Google Sheets files, so convert an Excel file first with File, Save as Google Sheets. Your conversation history is lost if you reload, close the file or go offline, so insert anything useful into the sheet straight away. Charts it creates do not update when the data changes, except charts from a BigQuery Connected Sheet. Google said per-user usage limits would apply after its launch promotion ended on 15 July 2026, so heavy use may be capped. See the Gemini guide and Copilot vs Gemini.
Best free option: Claude Free
Why it is the best free choice
Neither spreadsheet assistant is free. The practical free route is to upload your .csv or .xlsx file to Anthropic's Claude. Code execution and file creation are switched on by default on the Free plan, so Claude calculates with code rather than guessing, and it can hand back a cleaned spreadsheet as a file you download and open in Excel or Sheets. The Free plan runs Claude Sonnet 5.5 and Claude Haiku 5.5, with usage that resets every 5 hours up to a weekly cap. This is the same reason Claude Free is our free pick on the best AI for data analysis page.
ChatGPT Free is a close alternative: it analyses .xlsx and .csv files by writing and running Python, can create tables and charts, and shows its code. Its uploads and data analysis are limited on Free, and its Instant context window is 27K tokens (about 12 pages of input), so large sheets hit the limit sooner. OpenAI's advice for spreadsheets is worth following in any tool: headers in the first row, one row per record, plain-language column names and no unrelated tables on the same sheet.
Who it suits
Occasional users, students and anyone who needs a one-off analysis, a cleaned file or a formula explained.
The catch
Both free routes work on a copy, not your live workbook, so you copy formulas and results back yourself. Files are limited to 30 MB on Claude, there is no Claude Opus on Free, and neither tool reliably reads exact values from scanned files or images of tables. On Claude Free your chats can be used for training unless you turn off Help Improve our AI models in Settings, Privacy; on ChatGPT Free, switch off Improve the model for everyone in Settings, Data controls. Keep confidential figures out of free consumer plans. See the Claude guide and the ChatGPT guide.
How to choose: three questions
- Excel or Google Sheets? This decides most of it. Excel users pick Copilot in Excel; Sheets users pick Gemini in Sheets.
- Do you need the AI to change the file, or just answer questions? To build formulas, PivotTables and reports inside the workbook, use the built-in assistant. To ask questions of an export, a chat assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude is enough. Our best AI for data analysis page covers that case.
- Is it company data? Use a work account: Microsoft 365 Copilot with enterprise data protection, or a Google Workspace plan, where content is not used for training outside your domain without permission.
A workflow: messy export to monthly report
Example: a monthly sales export that needs cleaning, a summary and a chart for your manager. The steps use Copilot in Excel; Gemini in Sheets works the same way from its side panel.
- Work on a copy. Save the export as a new file so the original stays untouched.
- Clean first. Ask Copilot to clean the data: remove duplicates, fix dates in mixed formats, trim spaces and flag blanks. In Excel, the clean data skill finds duplicates, inconsistent formatting and wrong data types for you; approve each fix yourself.
- Turn it into a table. Ask for the data to be formatted as a table with clear headers, which makes every later step more reliable.
- Plan the summary. Switch to Plan mode and ask for a PivotTable of revenue by region and month. Read the plan, then let it build.
- Add the formulas you need. Ask for a month-on-month change column and have Copilot explain each formula in one sentence.
- Chart the one point that matters. Ask for a single chart with a title that states the finding.
- Check two numbers by hand. Pick one total and one percentage and verify them yourself before you send the file.
- Reuse the steps. Copilot in Excel can run custom skills, so if you do this every month, keep the steps as a skill or a saved prompt and next month takes one request.
Prompts to copy for Excel and Google Sheets
These eight prompts work in Copilot in Excel and Gemini in Google Sheets, and the analysis ones also work in ChatGPT or Claude with an uploaded file. Replace the [placeholders].
Prompts to copy
Clean a messy export
Clean the data on the [sheet name] sheet: remove exact duplicate rows, convert the [date column] to one date format (DD/MM/YYYY), trim extra spaces, and standardise [column] to these values: [list]. Highlight any blank cells in [required columns] rather than filling them. List every change you made.
You get: A tidy sheet, highlighted gaps and a change log to review.
Write a formula and explain it
In column [letter], write a formula that [describe the result, for example returns the customer's region from the Regions sheet using the customer ID in column A]. Handle missing matches by showing "Not found". Explain in one sentence how the formula works.
You get: A working formula with error handling and a plain explanation.
Build a PivotTable summary
Create a PivotTable on a new sheet called Summary showing total [value column] by [row field] and [column field], sorted from highest to lowest, with a grand total. Add a column for each [row field]'s share of the total as a percentage.
You get: A ready summary table with totals and shares.
Spot what changed this month
Compare [this month] with [last month] using [metric column]. Show the five biggest increases and decreases by [category], with the change in value and percentage, and highlight any category that moved more than [threshold] percent.
You get: A ranked list of the biggest movements, highlighted for attention.
Make one clear chart
Create a [line or bar] chart of [metric] by [period or category]. Title it with the main finding in words, label both axes with units, and place it next to the data on the [sheet name] sheet.
You get: A labelled chart whose title says what the data shows.
Build a tracker from scratch
Build a spreadsheet to track [what, for example our hiring pipeline] with columns for [list columns]. Add a dropdown for [status column] with the values [list], conditional formatting that turns overdue [date column] dates red, and a summary at the top counting items by status.
You get: A working tracker with dropdowns, formatting and a live summary.
Find errors in a workbook
Check this workbook for problems: formulas that return errors, formulas that do not match the pattern of the rows around them, hard-coded numbers inside formula ranges, and totals that do not add up. List each problem with the cell reference and a suggested fix. Do not change anything yet.
You get: An audit list of suspicious cells with references and fixes.
Explain the sheet to a new colleague
Explain what this spreadsheet does for someone who has never seen it: the purpose of each sheet, where the inputs go, which cells are calculated, and the three things most likely to break if someone edits it carelessly.
You get: A plain-English handover note for the workbook.