What Excel skills still matter now that Copilot is much better?
I've been struggling with this one for the last few months.
When Microsoft first rolled out Copilot for Excel, it was pretty underwhelming. Good at doing a few one-off tasks like creating new formula columns, but terrible at doing anything with even a moderate level of complexity.
Once they rolled out their new "Agent Mode" version of Copilot in Excel though, I have to admit that it's much better at getting you the outcomes you're looking for, even in tough scenarios.
You don't really need to tell Copilot which steps to take (which would require Excel expertise); you just need to tell it what you want, and it will likely figure it out.
So what are the fundamental skills that are still worth teaching / learning for anyone who uses Excel?
At the very least, it's those that allow you to double-check Copilot's work:
- Navigating spreadsheets (CTRL shortcuts)
- Filtering data
- Using the calculations in the status bar
- Creating basic pivot tables
But where does that leave everything else? Do you just need to learn "how to use Copilot in Excel" and some prompt engineering best practices?
As an experienced Excel user, it's hard for me to gauge how well I'd be able to use Copilot without my existing skillset, but I feel like it has to count for that I realize.
The way someone expressed it to me last week was, AI is now excellent at getting you 90% of the work in 10% of the time, but that means that you need to spend 90% of your time filling in the final 10% - that's what will make the work really stand out.
So what are the Excel skills we need for the final 10%? Is it the same ones we required before to complete 100% of the work?
Curious what people think.