Overview
Although artificial intelligence seems like it is suddenly permeating every aspect of our daily lives, AI has been part of Excel for over a decade now. In this presentation author and Excel expert David Ringstrom, CPA will walk you through various AI-powered features in Excel, including Flash Fill, Analyze Data, Power Query's Column From Example, extracting data from pictures and PDF documents, and more. Of course, no discussion of AI would be complete without an exploration of ChatGPT, so David will show you how to write and deconstruct formulas as well as automate repetitive tasks with only a minimal understanding of Excel's Visual Basic for Applications programming language.
David H. Ringstrom, CPA, has more than 30 years of experience as a spreadsheet and accounting software consultant and speaker. He has presented over 2,500 live webinars and is the author or co-author of ten books, including “Microsoft 365 Excel All-in-One for Dummies”, “Microsoft 365 Excel for Dummies”, “Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures”, and “QuickBooks Online for Dummies”.
In his webinars, David demonstrates every technique twice: first on a PowerPoint slide with numbered steps, and then live in Excel for Microsoft 365 for Windows. He highlights any differences in Excel 2024, 2021, or 2019 during the presentation and in his detailed handouts. Attendees also receive an Excel workbook containing most of the examples he uses, making it easy to follow along and apply the techniques later. David additionally supports Excel for Mac users by answering their follow-up questions via email.
Learning Objectives
· State the functionality that the Flash Fill feature offers.
· Define the purpose of Excel’s Forecast feature.
· Recognize the color that dynamic array functions are displayed in within Excel's formula bar in all cells except the cell where the formulas was entered.
Areas Covered
· Clarifying how the former web apps now align under the Copilot identity.
· Showing how to pass a text prompt and a cell reference to COPILOT for automated transaction categorization.
· Extracting data from pictures by way of the From Picture command.
· Separating first/last names into two columns without using formulas or retyping.
· Converting a range to a table and using the Total Row to summarize data
· Merging text from two or more columns without using formulas or repetitive retyping with Flash Fill.
· Jump-starting PivotTables by way of the Recommended PivotTables feature.
· Defining the core capabilities of AI agents.
· Utilizing the COPILOT worksheet function for enhanced data analysis and automation.
· Distinguishing prompt-based assistance from goal-driven execution.
· Turning a COPILOT formula into a reusable custom function by defining it as a LAMBDA in Excel.
· How AI features quietly appear through ongoing Microsoft 365 updates
