Wouldn’t it be great if you could use ChatGPT directly inside Excel without jumping between apps or endlessly copying and pasting? Well… now you can!

Thanks to a free Excel add-in, you can bring ChatGPT-powered AI functions right into your spreadsheet, whether you’re on Windows or Mac.

In this post and accompanying video, I’ll walk you through how to get started, and demonstrate three powerful functions: AI.FILL, AI.ASK, and AI.EXTRACT.

Want to follow along? Download the practice file from the link at the bottom of this post

Installing the ChatGPT Add-in

To get started, click the Add-ins button on the right-hand side of the Home tab in the Excel ribbon. This opens the add-ins panel.

In the search box, type chatgpt. Look for the add-in called “ChatGPT for Excel” and click Add.

Once the add-in is installed, you can close the panel that appears.

This add-in is developed by a reputable company and listed on Microsoft AppSource, the official Microsoft marketplace for Excel add-ins.

You’ll get 300 free AI calls, which refers to the number of requests you can make from Excel to ChatGPT. Once you’ve used those, you can sign up for one of their paid plans if you want to continue using it. To get details of these paid-for plans, click the CHatGPT for Excel button on the Ribbon Home tab.

Exploring the AI Functions in Excel

Once the add-in is installed, type =AI into a blank cell. Excel displays a list of 8 functions. These functions are only available whilst the add-in is installed and active.

AI.FILL

Let’s say you have a list of chemical elements in Column A, and you want to populate Column B with their symbols. The key to making AI.FILL work is to include headers and a few examples of what you want.

In the screenshot below, A1:B1 contains headings and B2:B3 contains examples of what is required.

In B3 I type Example formula: =AI.FILL(A1:B3, A4:A8)

The first argument is the range containing your header and examples.

The second argument is the range of data that needs to be completed.

The function will use your examples to intelligently fill in the rest of Column B.

AI.ASK

Doing some research? =AI.ASK lets you pose natural language questions about your data right inside Excel.

Let’s say you’re researching companies in the pharmaceutical industry and want to find out where their HQ is located, the number of employees and the 2024 revenue.

Column A contains the names of the countries. In columns B, C and D, you could use the following formulas:

=AI.ASK(“Which country does the company have its HQ”, A2)

=AI.ASK(“How many employees does the company have. Just the number”, A2)

=AI.ASK(“I need the total revenue for 2024. Just the number, unformatted”, A2)

You can tailor your questions and even ask for specific output formats like just the number or just the country name.

AI.EXTRACT

Let’s say you’ve got a column of mixed text containing names, job titles, email addresses, and phone numbers and you want to pull just the email addresses into Column B.

That’s where =AI.EXTRACT shines. For example: =AI.EXTRACT(A1, “Email Address”)

Wrapping Up

And that’s a quick look at some of the new AI-powered functions now available in Excel using the ChatGPT add-in. These tools can save time, reduce manual work, and bring the power of natural language understanding straight to your spreadsheets. Give them a try and see how much more productive you can be in Excel.

These are the formulas the formulas that I used in the video:

=AI.FILL(A1:B3,A4:A12)

=AI.ASK(“Which country does the company have its HQ. Please display just the country”,A2)

=AI.ASK(“How many employees does the company have. Just the number”,A2)

=AI.ASK(“I need the total revenue for 2024. Just the number, unformatted”,A2)

=AI.EXTRACT(A1,”Email Address”)

Download a copy of the file(s) used in this video: https://share.zight.com/qGu8X9oW