Much of the corporate world remains highly reliant on Excel, despite attempts to replace it with other software packages and custom code, using Python, for example. It is therefore important to monitor Excel’s strategic direction.

Although this can be secretive and changeable, clues can be found in Microsoft’s high-level communications and in product updates announced on Microsoft’s Excel blog. Updates are sometimes made available in advance through the Microsoft 365 Insider programme and the Excel Labs add-in.

Key takeaways from recent Microsoft high-level communications are:

• The company’s very strong commitment to artificial intelligence.
• The introduction of ‘Copilot‘ (an AI assistant) for individual products and across products, using natural language to provide AI-generated solutions.
• The use of Copilot with GitHub to semi-automate coding.
• The use of Copilot with the Microsoft Power Platform to semi-automate low-code solutions.
• The launch of ‘Windows-as-a-service’, which will make Windows-only applications available on Mac devices.
• The commitment to Bing as a way to access AI services, despite its low use as a search engine.

On Excel’s blog, the main announcement in August 2023 was the upcoming availability of Python in Excel: ‘Combining the power of Python and the flexibility of Excel.’ This is being made available progressively to participants in the Microsoft 365 Insider programme before general release.

Python’s inventor, Guido van Rossum, now works for Microsoft and assisted the Excel-Python project, so integration is likely to be good.

This development might not enthuse many Python advocates (often known as ‘Pythonistas’), some of whom have a bias against Excel, but could defuse aspects of the ‘Excel versus Python’ debate. Excel’s advocates (‘Excelistas’?) can now more easily propose that IT departments provide hybrid Excel/Python solutions rather than an either/or approach.

Python in Excel may result in some Excel analysts learning some coding, and could potentially have more take-up than the powerful but somewhat unused LAMBDA function.

Nevertheless, Excel is persisting with its ‘Advanced formula environment‘, including LAMBDA, in the Excel Labs add-in.

Also included in Excel Labs is the LABS.GENERATIVEAI function, which enables AI queries from within an Excel cell, which can then be referenced from other cells.

However, the LABS.GENERATIVEAI function requires an API key from OpenAI which charges for its service after a free trial amount. This results in a #BUSY! then #N/A error in Excel for non-subscribers to OpenAI, causing some confusion.

It will take some innovation from Microsoft and OpenAI to provide a more seamless experience, perhaps in future including automated OpenAPI key generation and a reasonable level of free use as a standard part of Microsoft licences.

In due course, a successor to LABS.GENERATIVEAI could work well in combination with Python in Excel for non-Pythonista Excel analysts. From within an Excel spreadsheet, they could ask for and execute Python code to solve an Excel issue that they might otherwise have battled for days.

Meanwhile, an intriguing question is what Python in Excel could mean for the future of Microsoft’s VBA within Excel.

Notes

The Excel Labs add-in is available with a valid Office subscription licence after signing up to the Microsoft 365 Insider programme. The required access to the Beta Channel can be subject to a corporate administrator’s settings.

Van Rossum’s use of the term ‘Python’ refers to Monty Python, not the snake. Below are AI-generated pictures from Microsoft Bing’s Image Creator (powered by DALL-E):

‘Microsoft Excel versus Python’:

‘Microsoft Excel versus Monty Python’: