How to Learn Excel with AI: A 2025 Guide

AI technology has rapidly advanced, making tools like Microsoft Excel easier to learn and use. With the integration of AI through Microsoft 365 Copilot, Excel now provides real-time support, assisting users with complex functions by generating appropriate formulas and explaining how they work, based on user prompts, generating visualizations based on your data, and identifying trends and patterns, which helps users understand and complete tasks more efficiently. 

You can find many ways to learn Excel with AI. From Microsoft Learn’s free AI learning hub, with tutorials and structured learning paths, to online courses that explore how AI enhances Excel’s capabilities, the best way to learn depends on your goals, skill level, and learning preferences.

How does AI help with learning Excel?

AI can help you learn Excel by making it easier to understand, explore, and use its features. Particularly ideal for beginners, AI-powered tools like conversational chat let you ask specific questions, find information, discover strategies within Excel, learn shortcuts, and more. 

Even if you’re familiar with Excel, AI can improve your experience by helping you make the most of its features. It guides you through complex tasks using intuitive tools, simplifying the learning process. For example, rather than memorizing formulas or manually analyzing data, you can use built-in features that assist and educate you simultaneously. These tools foster an interactive learning environment, allowing you to build Excel skills with real-time insights and support, ultimately making your work more efficient, streamlined, and tailored to your needs.

Features of AI for Excel

AI-powered Excel acts as your personal assistant, helping you clean up messy data, detect trends, write formulas, and format cells and data professionally. With the integration of AI, Excel offers powerful tools that help users work smarter, faster, and with fewer errors. 

• Data cleaning: Quickly cleans data by automatically detecting duplicates, errors, and inconsistencies in large and complex data sets and correcting them. Example prompts: 

  • “Trim extra space in column D.” 

  • “Find and fix inconsistent capitalization in this list.”

• Formulas: Suggests formulas based on existing data and generates complex formulas with guided support. Eliminates the need to manually enter calculations by creating new rows or columns that perform calculations based on existing data. Example prompts:

  • “Calculate total cost per product in a new column.” 

  • “Calculate the difference between the values in cells D2 and E2.”

• Trends and patterns: Analyzes your data to detect patterns and trends in complex sets. Reveals insights based on specific data or queries as charts, trends, PivotTables, or outliers. Example prompt: 

  • “Which product sold the most in Georgia?” 

• Smart suggestions: Offers context-based suggestions for shortcuts and alternative methods based on your actions within Excel to streamline processes and make working with your data more intuitive. Example: 

  • When creating a PivotTable, Copilot may suggest, based on your data set's characteristics, “Would you like to add total sales by region and month?” to enhance sales by region analysis.

• Automation: Generates automated reports, summaries, visualizations, and insights based on the structure and context of your data. Automates tasks like splitting names or reformatting cells. Example prompt: 

  • “Create a summary report of the data in A10-D20.”

Why use AI for Excel?

Using AI for Excel essentially turns your spreadsheet into a smart assistant, making everything from formulas to charts easier to manage and faster to create, with increased accuracy. Excel’s AI-powered features benefit both individuals and large companies by streamlining workflows, simplifying operations, optimizing day-to-day business processes, and enhancing overall business operations. Finally, with over 1 million US customers using Microsoft 365, AI for Excel is an excellent way to integrate AI-based analysis without having to learn a new platform [1].

Accuracy

It’s easy to make mistakes when analyzing or managing data, and those errors can sometimes lead to poor business decisions. AI for Excel helps reduce mistakes by suggesting formulas and handling complex calculations for you.

Efficiency

You can save time by letting Excel’s AI handle repetitive tasks like cleaning data, suggesting formulas, and generating reports. By streamlining and automating these tasks in Excel, you’ll improve efficiency and have more time for other important tasks. 

Scalability

When you're working with large spreadsheets containing thousands of rows or numerous tabs, it can become messy and complicated to manage. Copilot in Excel helps by quickly processing that data for you, enabling you to handle large or complex files more easily and work with greater efficiency.

How to learn Excel with AI

You’ll find numerous ways to learn Excel with AI, with multiple options for beginners and novice Excel users. Online resources and courses are convenient and ideal for mastering skills at various levels. Professionals looking to enhance their credentials may find earning a certification in Excel an ideal option for learning Excel with AI. Microsoft also provides a learning platform with guided tutorials, tool guidance, case studies, and more to help users build core AI skills while learning to use Excel with AI. 

Join Microsoft’s AI learning hub.

The AI learning hub, part of Microsoft Learn, is a free online platform offering tutorials, courses, and resources designed to help you effectively and responsibly use AI tools like AI in Excel. One featured resource is the “Get Started with Microsoft 365 Copilot” learning path, a three-part series that introduces Copilot’s capabilities, explores its applications in Excel, and provides practical tips for optimizing its use for smarter, more efficient workflows.

Earn a certification.

Microsoft offers two levels of certification for anyone looking to learn Excel or improve their existing skills. Earning a certification in Excel can add credibility to your resume. Choose the certification that aligns with your goals:

• The Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS)- Excel Associate is designed for users who want to develop foundational proficiency in Excel at an industry-associate level. Users will learn essential skills within Excel, including creating charts, formatting cells, and managing workbooks. Candidates typically have at least 150 hours of instruction and experience with Excel. 

• The Microsoft Office Specialist: Excel Expert is an advanced certification for users aiming to demonstrate their expertise in Excel. Data analysts and financial professionals often pursue this certification. Candidates typically have around 150 hours of instruction and hands-on experience with Excel to validate their proficiency for this certification. 

Both certification programs require passing a 50-minute exam. 

Take an online course.

Online courses are a convenient and effective way to learn Excel with AI, including basic generative AI skills and best practices. Choosing an online course offers flexibility, making it easier to fit learning into your schedule—especially if you're a working professional. Whether you're just starting out or looking to sharpen advanced skills, you can likely find an option to fit your needs. Enrolling in an online course can provide you with expert-level guidance and hands-on experience.

Learning how to maximize Excel with AI is particularly beneficial if you want to demonstrate professional proficiency in your current position. Explore AI in Excel further by enrolling in one of these online courses, available on Coursera:

• Microsoft Copilot: Your Everyday AI Companion Specialization

• Excel Skills for Data Analytics and Visualization 

• ChatGPT + Excel: AI-Enhanced Data Analysis & Insight

• Microsoft 365 with Generative AI Professional Certificate 

Read and use free resources.

If you prefer to learn on your own time and within a budget, you can find many free resources. Microsoft offers a range of articles that walk you through specific tasks in Excel, as well as broader articles explaining what Copilot is in Excel. Familiarize yourself with the many features, use cases, and applications to help you understand how and when to use these AI tools. 

Practice.

Practice your skills using Copilot prompts by learning best practices for creating better prompts. This can help you maximize the benefits of AI in Excel. With practice, you can learn to make your prompts more specific and tailored to your needs by adding context and strategically using cue words. To ensure your results are accurate and aligned with your intentions, it’s important to practice reviewing and revising them as you go.

Which industries use AI in Excel?

From finance and marketing to education and human resources (HR), many industries use Excel’s AI features to boost efficiency and uncover valuable insights. AI-powered tools in Excel are transforming how industries handle data, automate tasks, and make decisions. Common industries that use AI in Excel include: 

• Financial services: Financial professionals can use forecasting to analyze historical data, identify trends, compare actual spending to planned amounts for budget assessment, and evaluate potential investments by analyzing projected returns.

• HR: HR teams employ analytics to track employee performance, spot high achievers, and identify areas for growth. They analyze turnover trends to address retention challenges and use workforce data to anticipate future hiring needs.

• Manufacturing: Inventory managers analyze past sales data to forecast future needs and maintain optimal stock levels. They also assess supply chain data to improve efficiency and track inventory costs to control spending.

• Education: Educators examine student performance trends to identify strengths and gaps in learning. They evaluate resource usage and effectiveness to make informed decisions about resource allocation.

• Marketing: Marketing analysts can analyze marketing data to track key metrics like conversion rates and acquisition costs, uncover trends in customer behavior, and segment audiences by demographics and purchase patterns to improve targeting and campaign effectiveness.

Learn more about AI in Excel with Coursera

You can learn more about how to use AI in Excel through online courses. On Coursera, you'll find course options that cover everything from basic Excel functions using new AI-driven tools to more advanced courses that go deeper, helping Excel users analyze complex data, automate tasks, and build real-world skills for professional use. Consider enrolling in Microsoft Copilot: Your Everyday AI Companion Specialization today and get started.