Effortless Spreadsheets with AI

Effortless Spreadsheets with AI

Introduction

In the past, mastering spreadsheets required knowledge of VLOOKUP, sorting by multiple columns, conditional formatting, building pivot tables, and more. But now, AI can do all of that for you. This video explores seven manual tasks in Excel that AI can simplify, even for beginners.

Effortless Table Joins with AI

The first task AI simplifies is joining different tables together. Imagine you have a table with cookie orders (including price) and another table with product information (including price). You want to combine these tables to show the price for each order. In Excel, you might use VLOOKUP or similar functions, but AI offers a natural language approach. Simply type a query like "Can you pull in the price into cookie orders from Products?" The AI will then process your request and update the table accordingly.

Simplified Sorting with AI

Sorting multiple columns in a spreadsheet can also be done with a simple prompt. You can specify the column to sort by (e.g., product) and the order (e.g., alphabetical) in the same prompt. For instance, you could ask the AI to "Sort by product in alphabetical order and then by revenue from largest to smallest." The AI will then rearrange the table based on your instructions.

Conditional Formatting with AI

Conditional formatting allows you to highlight cells, rows, or columns based on specific conditions. Traditionally, this required some expertise in Excel. However, AI makes it much easier. You can simply type a prompt like "Highlight all rows where order revenue exceeds 50" to highlight the relevant rows. The formatting will also update dynamically as you change the data in the spreadsheet.

Filtering Made Smarter with AI

Filtering a list based on multiple criteria can be cumbersome in Excel. But AI streamlines the process. Let's say you want to filter a list of orders to show only those that include specific cookie types. You can achieve this by typing a prompt like "filter this table by product type and filter it by these cookies" (specifying the cookie types). The AI will then generate a new table with the filtered data.

AI Pivot Tables for Instant Insights

Summarizing or grouping data can also be done with an AI prompt. Imagine you need to see the revenue by location for your cookie business. You can simply ask the AI to "show me revenue by location." The AI will then generate a pivot table that groups the data by location and calculates the total revenue for each location.

AI Charts

AI can also help you create charts to visualize your data. After generating a pivot table, you can ask the AI to "suggest a chart for this data." The AI will then recommend and create a chart (e.g., bar chart) that effectively represents the data in the pivot table. You can further customize the chart using the editing options available.

Removing Duplicates with AI

Another way AI simplifies spreadsheet work is by removing duplicates. For instance, you might have a list of email addresses for your newsletter subscribers, but there could be duplicate entries. To remove these duplicates, you can type a prompt like "remove duplicates based on the first name column, the last name column, and the email column." The AI will then identify and remove any duplicate entries based on the specified criteria.

Bonus: Data Types

While not directly related to AI, setting data types for columns can help ensure users enter valid data in your spreadsheets. For example, you can create an order form with columns for order date, cookie type, and fulfilled status. By setting the data type for "order date" to "date," you can ensure users select a valid date from a date picker when entering an order. Similarly, you can set the data type for "cookie type" to "tags" and create a dropdown list with the available cookie options (e.g., chocolate chip, sugar). Finally, you can set the data type for "fulfilled" to "checkbox" to provide a simple way for users to mark fulfilled orders.

Export to Excel

After using AI to analyze your data in Bricks, you can export the results back to Excel. Simply click on the "menu" option in the top left corner and select "export." This will create a new Excel spreadsheet containing the data you analyzed using AI.