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YES

As of 13 August 2026, AI can write Excel formulas for your report.

This still needs a person who signs their name to it.

Can you do it?

2 minutesto a draft.

30 minutesto something you’d act on.

Cost, all in£0

Skill neededchat-fluent

Who has to check ityou

What the alternative costsThe supplied tool list does not give a price for a human alternative.

If this goes wrong: a plausible formula produces incorrect report figures and the error may be repeated before someone notices it.

What to actually do

  1. Hand it to a person

    The route this page recommends

    A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

  2. Use a tool built for this

    Second choice

  3. Do it yourself

    The distant third

    A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

    How to actually do it

    1. Open the report workbook in Excel and copy the sheet names, column headings, relevant cell or table ranges, and a few anonymised example rows.
    2. Write down the exact result the formula must produce, including how it should treat blanks, errors, duplicate records, dates and excluded rows.
    3. Add examples with known expected results, including an ordinary row and the edge cases most likely to affect the report.
    4. Paste the workbook structure, rules, examples and Excel version into the prompt, then ask the chatbot for the formula, assumptions and test table.
    5. Paste the returned formula into a copy of the workbook, using the stated cell or table column, and check that Excel accepts the syntax without changing the references.
    6. Compare the calculated results with your known examples and manually calculate the edge cases, then test blanks, errors, inserted rows and filtered report data.
    7. Ask a colleague who understands the report definitions to compare the formula and its assumptions with the source data before distributing the report.

    Prompt

    Write the Excel formula I need for this report. Use only the workbook structure and rules I provide, and do not invent column names, business rules or example values. Ask concise questions if anything needed is missing.

Workbook and sheet names: [paste them here]
Column headings and cell ranges: [paste them here]
Desired result: [describe the value the formula must return]
Business rules: [describe conditions, exclusions, treatment of blanks, errors and dates]
Example inputs and expected outputs: [paste at least three examples, including an edge case]
Excel version and locale: [paste these here]

Return:
1. The formula in a code block.
2. The cell or column where it should go.
3. A plain-English explanation of each part.
4. Any assumptions or unresolved questions.
5. A small test table showing the expected result for each example.
Use structured references where the data is an Excel Table and absolute references where appropriate. Keep the formula compatible with the Excel version I supplied. Do not claim it is correct until the examples and edge cases pass.

    Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

What it gets wrong

  • AI cannot infer the business meaning of an ambiguous column such as status, revenue or completed date.
  • AI cannot see hidden sheets, named ranges, manual overrides or workbook settings unless you provide them.
  • AI can produce a syntactically valid formula that applies the wrong reporting rule.
  • AI cannot guarantee that a formula remains correct when the workbook structure, data source or reporting definition changes.

Even on a YES, the friction has a name: verification cost and judgement under ambiguity.

How we scored this

Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.

AxisScore (0–2)
Output2
Inputs2
Verification1
Liability1
Effort delta2
Total8 / 10

The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.

FAQ

Can ChatGPT write an Excel formula for me?
Yes, if you provide the headings, ranges, rule and examples. Test the returned formula in a copy of the workbook because a formula can be valid Excel and still calculate the wrong business result.
Can AI fix a broken Excel formula?
Usually, if you paste the existing formula, the error message, the relevant headings and a small example of the expected result. It cannot diagnose workbook features or hidden dependencies that you have not shown it.
Can AI write formulas for a whole Excel report?
It can draft formulas for repeated columns, summaries and checks when you describe the report structure consistently. You still need to test totals, filters, blanks, dates and changes to the source data before sending the report.
Is it safe to paste my work spreadsheet into AI?
Only share data your organisation permits you to share, and remove names, customer details, account numbers and other confidential information where they are not needed. A small anonymised sample and the workbook structure are often enough to write the formula.

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Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.

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