Microsoft Copilot in Excel
Shares rank 2 of 3 spreadsheet add-ins by recommenders
Recommended for saving hours on formulas and everyday Excel tasks. Critics report confident errors, unreliable handling of spreadsheet contents, and results that are hard to check.
Recommended for saving hours on formulas and everyday Excel tasks. Critics report confident errors, unreliable handling of spreadsheet contents, and results that are hard to check.
43 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 36
- approval share
- 16%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful for everyday Excel tasks
“The models are quite proficient at it, and they do a great job.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “ChatGPT for Excel” “I've had a really good time with the new Copilot in Excel.”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “ChatGPT for Excel” “It’s actually quite useful.”
Comment from 8 Feb 2026 in “Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Cannot see or read spreadsheet contents
“Copilot was clueless. The spreadsheet was open, the Copilot button is right there in the UI”
Comment from 5 Feb 2026 in “Microsoft's Pivotal AI Product Is Running into Big Problems” “that can’t interact with or seemingly even see the contents of the spreadsheet”
Comment from 8 Dec 2025 in “Microsoft has a problem: lack of demand for its AI products” “Copilot for Excel is useless. Ask it what is in cell A1 and it can't answer.”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “ChatGPT for Excel” Hallucinates and makes confident errors
“AI is still very fucky, and for people that don't understand the nuances, it definitely will hallucinate and potentially cause real issues.”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel” “LLMs get instantly confused in real world scenarios in Excel and confidently hallucinate millions in errors”
Comment from 5 Nov 2025 in “I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel” Buggy and unreliable on simple tasks
“I ran into a ridiculous bug in Copilot for Excel. After all these years Microsoft still can’t manage the basics of reliability”
Comment from 14 Jun 2026 in “Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)” “making a complete mess of the most simple tasks and never touching it again”
Comment from 2 Feb 2026 in “Two kinds of AI users are emerging. The gap between them is astonishing” Results not repeatable or checkable
“it seems like a company could run the risk of losing that deterministic basis for double-checking”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel” “With Copilot’s probabilistic formula evaluation you can never tell what the result will be”
Comment from 6 Nov 2025 in “I’m worried that they put co-pilot in Excel”
Other spreadsheet add-ins people recommend
The two most recommended other spreadsheet add-ins, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Claude for Excel | 11 | 4 | 73% | 8 | — | Approved |
| Microsoft Copilot in ExcelThis page | 7 | 36 | 16% | 3 | — | — |
| ChatGPT for Excel | 7 | 14 | 33% | 1 | — | — |
What people said
40 of the 47 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It was an excel function that would never be deterministic”
“They disliked it then, they still dislike it now.”
“but didn't actually make the pie chart for me”
“I ran into a ridiculous bug in Copilot for Excel. After all these years Microsoft still can’t manage the basics of reliability”
“the copilot feature in excel deployed there is next to useless”
“I've had a really good time with the new Copilot in Excel.”
“You shouldn't have shoved trash down people's throats a few months ago then?”
“The models are quite proficient at it, and they do a great job.”
“Copilot for Excel can't even parse basic cell references”
“Copilot is so bad that chatGPT is offered to replace it.”
“I don't like how Copilot is designed or implemented tho”
“Otherwise its pretty simple chat interface with the context, that's all.”
“Instead of answering with 6, it came up with 15.”
“Copilot for Excel is useless. Ask it what is in cell A1 and it can't answer.”
“It couldn't even detect which cells were selected and read them”
“it always just wants to answer questions about my data which isn’t helpful to me”
“It’s actually quite useful.”
“Copilot was clueless. The spreadsheet was open, the Copilot button is right there in the UI”
“Excel integration is amazing, saves me hours a week and helps me write complicated formulas in seconds.”
“Ethan Mollick is out there demonstrating that OpenAI is more effective at working with Excel than the built in AI”
“user just needs to somehow know/intuit (?!?!) that they need to convert the workbook”
“Microsoft's failure around copilot in Excel gave my partner a very poor impression on AI's ability to help with financial tasks.”
“making a complete mess of the most simple tasks and never touching it again”
“can’t access the excel file of the window it’s in”
“that can’t interact with or seemingly even see the contents of the spreadsheet”
“it quickly got into a loop of "that's not possible… oh yea here is how you do that… oh you are right that didn't work because it's not possible"”
“current technology is still far from achieving 90% or higher accuracy”
“With Copilot’s probabilistic formula evaluation you can never tell what the result will be”
“it seems like a company could run the risk of losing that deterministic basis for double-checking”
“Lets sell all that goodwill for a shiny new magic bean.”
“AI use in spreadsheets is a terrible idea because AI just isn't that good.”
“another cheese that will affect the outcome of major tournaments”
“Brenda and her C-Suits can not define it but they know for sure Copilot in excel will lead to enormous time saving.”
“AI is still very fucky, and for people that don't understand the nuances, it definitely will hallucinate and potentially cause real issues.”
“I've used Copilot enough now to know that there will be huge, costly mistakes.”
“copilot in Excel can't even edit the sheet you are working on”
“LLMs get instantly confused in real world scenarios in Excel and confidently hallucinate millions in errors”
“Most of the features were disabled or hopelessly bad.”
“This sort of gimmick is not going to help anyone keeping their job.”
“Copilot may be good, but sure as hell doesn't know that admin password.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.