Copilot for Excel: Work Faster in 2026
How to Use Copilot in Excel – Practical Examples That Save Hours
G’day! If you’ve ever found yourself drowning in spreadsheets, wrestling with complex formulas, or spending hours on data cleanup that could’ve been done in minutes, you’re in the right place. Excel just got a massive upgrade with Microsoft Copilot, and if you’re not using it yet, you’re working way harder than you need to.
Picture this: it’s 4:47 PM on a Friday. You’ve got a dataset that needs cleaning, pivot tables to build, and a financial model due Monday morning. Your weekend plans are looking shaky. Now imagine finishing all of that in under an hour. That’s Copilot for Excel in 2026 and Australian organisations are already using it to reclaim serious time each week. ROI proof (Microchannel)
Table of contents
What Is Copilot for Excel, Anyway?
Think of Copilot as your exceptionally clever work mate who happens to be an Excel wizard. Instead of Googling “how to VLOOKUP” for the hundredth time or manually cleaning messy data row by row, you simply ask Copilot in plain English and it does the heavy lifting. Microsoft overview
Copilot sits inside Excel and can generate formulas, analyse trends, create charts, clean data, and even run Python analyses without you needing to be a data scientist. Excel team blog
Why it feels “smarter” than a macro
• It understands your workbook context (tables, headers, patterns).
• It can do multi-step work: clean → summarise → chart → present.
• It’s conversational: you refine outputs instead of restarting.
The January 2026 Update: Agent Mode
Microsoft rolled out Agent Mode in January 2026, making Copilot far more capable for complex workbooks. Agent Mode can plan multi-step tasks, execute them in your workbook, check its work, and iterate until the output looks right. What’s new in Excel (Jan 2026)
What Agent Mode unlocks
• Build a dashboard from scratch (tables, pivots, charts, slicers).
• Merge data across sheets, standardise formats, add conditional rules.
• Repeatable “do this every month” workflows with less manual effort.
• Some environments let you choose between OpenAI and Anthropic models. Maxsum overview
Why Australian Businesses Are Going All-In on Copilot
Copilot’s big win isn’t “AI magic”. It’s brutally practical: less time spent on repetitive spreadsheet work, fewer errors, faster reporting cycles, and more time for analysis and decisions.
Time savings that add up
• Copilot users commonly report saving around 9 hours per month. Microchannel ROI article
• Case studies show daily time savings and weekly productivity lifts in large organisations. C5 Insight case studies
• Toshiba’s reported savings: 5.6 hours/month per employee. Microsoft customer stories
Australian-specific applications
• Accounting: faster reconciliation, GST/BAS prep, compliance reporting. Accounting efficiencies
• Banking/finance: dashboards, risk summaries, regulatory reporting. Nexacu banking + finance examples
• Faster lending workflows and analytics-driven approvals. Read the case notes
How Copilot Actually Works: Real Examples You Can Use Monday Morning
Let’s stop talking theory and get practical. Below are seven common “Excel pain moments” and how Copilot helps you escape them faster than a Friday arvo fire drill.
1) Formula generation (no more “brain fog”)
Instead of building monster formulas by hand, Copilot can suggest the right formula based on your sheet context. In many cases, you type = and Copilot’s “Generate formula” feature can propose the exact logic you need. Example demo (YouTube)
Example: commission logic
Copilot suggestion:
Example: XLOOKUP without the drama
Copilot can detect table names, match columns, and add sensible error handling. Ablebits guide
2) Data cleaning (the job everyone hates)
Messy imports are inevitable: inconsistent names, extra spaces, mixed date formats, duplicates, chaos. Copilot lets you describe what “clean” means and applies it fast. Microsoft tips
Prompt you can copy
“Clean this data: remove extra spaces, standardise capitalization to proper case, and split the Name column into separate First Name and Last Name columns.”
Bonus: teams have reported major time savings from cleanup automation alone. EssentialTech example
3) Instant insights (from “data overwhelm” to “aha”)
When you need trends, outliers, and a quick “what matters?” summary, Copilot can scan your dataset, create visuals, and write a summary you can refine. Get insights with Copilot
Prompt you can copy
“Analyse this sales data and summarise the top 5 trends, identify any outliers, and show me performance by region.”
Real-world teams have used Copilot to reduce “insights compilation” from hours to under an hour. Case studies
4) Sentiment analysis (customer feedback at scale)
If you’ve got thousands of reviews, Copilot can classify sentiment, tag themes, and generate pivot summaries without you reading every comment like it’s a personal diary entry. Sentiment demo (YouTube)
Prompt you can copy
“Analyse customer sentiment in the Feedback column and categorise by themes: product quality, pricing, service, packaging.”
Pro tip: Follow with “Insert a pivot table showing sentiment distribution by product category.”
5) Pivot tables (without the panic)
Pivot tables are powerful… and famously easy to mess up at speed. Copilot can build the pivot, sort it, and then you refine with follow-up prompts. Pivot table guide
Prompt you can copy
“Create a pivot table showing total revenue by region and quarter, sorted by highest revenue.”
Refine with: “Add a slicer for product category and format currency with no decimals.”
6) Financial modelling (scenario analysis made simple)
Sensitivity tables and what-if modelling normally require strong Excel skills. Copilot can build the structure and formatting you focus on assumptions and decisions. Computerworld examples
Prompt you can copy
“Create a 2-way sensitivity table for Price and Volume showing impact on Operating Income. Highlight cells below zero in red.”
7) Python integration (advanced analytics without the PhD)
Copilot can write and run Python in Excel for forecasting, statistics, and richer analysis helpful when formulas become a tangled jungle. Microsoft Python app skills
Forecasting prompt (copy/paste)
“Using this monthly sales data, create an ARIMA forecasting model to predict the next 6 months of sales and visualise the results.”
Further reading: Anaconda overview and SF Magazine note.
Copilot Best Practices: Get Results, Not Frustration
1) Format your data as tables (always)
Select your range and press Ctrl+T. Tables give Copilot clear structure and column names to work with. Prompt tips (SumProduct)
2) Write specific prompts
Better prompt pattern
Vague: “Analyse sales”
Specific: “Summarise sales by product category for Q4 2025, show top 5 performers by revenue, and identify categories declining vs Q3.”
Microsoft’s prompting guidance: Get better results
3) Start small, then scale
Test on a representative sample first (100–500 rows). Validate results, refine prompts, then apply to the full dataset. Why this works
4) Always verify AI-generated work
Copilot is powerful, not infallible. Review anything it creates, especially formulas and business logic. Microsoft note on reviewing
Common Copilot Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them)
Mistake #1: Not saving to OneDrive / SharePoint
Copilot requires your workbook saved to OneDrive or SharePoint with AutoSave enabled for many features. Microsoft note
Mistake #2: Using merged cells
Merged cells break sorting, filtering, selection, and analysis flows. Use “Center Across Selection” instead
Mistake #3: Ignoring structure
Copilot works best with tabular data: one row per record, one column per field, headers at the top. If your data is wide (years across columns), consider unpivoting with Power Query.
How Much Does Copilot Cost in Australia?
Copilot isn’t free but if it saves you even a handful of hours a month, the maths usually works out.
Pricing tiers (2026)
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Business: AU$31.40/user/month (discounted to AU$26.91 with annual commitment during promo). Microsoft Business pricing
• Microsoft 365 Copilot (Enterprise): AU$44.90/user/month (annual commitment). Microsoft Enterprise pricing
Free vs paid Copilot Chat
Microsoft offers Copilot Chat in some subscriptions, but the paid licence is what unlocks deep integration with your work data + full Excel Copilot features. What’s the difference?
Getting Started: Your First Week with Copilot
Week 1 plan (simple, realistic, effective)
Day 1: Confirm your licence, save a workbook to OneDrive, convert data to a Table (Ctrl+T), run a simple “Summarise this data” prompt.
Day 2: Replace a manual formula with Copilot’s generated formula, then ask Copilot to explain the logic.
Day 3: Clean a messy dataset (trim spaces, proper case, remove duplicates) and verify results.
Day 4: Ask for trends/outliers and create a chart; refine formatting with follow-ups.
Day 5: Generate a pivot table + slicer; try a basic scenario analysis prompt.
Training Resources: Become a Copilot Power User
You can self-teach Copilot, but structured training tends to get you to “useful at work” much faster and helps you avoid the classic spreadsheet pitfalls that quietly ruin reporting.
Nexacu training (Australian-based)
Nexacu runs instructor-led Microsoft Copilot for Excel training designed for Australian workplaces hands-on, practical, and focused on real business scenarios. View Copilot for Excel training
The Future: What’s Coming to Copilot
Microsoft isn’t slowing down. Expect more automation, better context across sheets, and more industry-specific workflows as Copilot matures.
What to watch
• Expanded Agent Mode rollouts and richer multi-step automation. Agent Mode video
• Enhanced Python workflows and deeper library support. Excel blog
• Improved context across sheets/workbooks + external sources. Maxsum note
• Industry-specific agents and templates for regulated work. More details
Real Talk: Is Copilot Worth It?
Copilot isn’t perfect. It can overcomplicate formulas, confidently miss nuance, and occasionally hallucinate like a sleep-deprived intern. But used properly, it can save hours, reduce repetitive work, and make your spreadsheets more consistent.
A simple ROI gut-check
• Average time savings often cited: ~9 hours/month. Source
• Typical cost range: AU$26.91–AU$44.90 per user/month. Business / Enterprise
• If your time is worth more than a few dollars per hour (spoiler: it is), Copilot usually pays for itself quickly.
Here’s the real challenge: try Copilot on one annoying task this week cleaning data, building a pivot, generating a complex formula and time it. Multiply those saved minutes by a month. That’s your ROI. And those reclaimed hours? That’s your life, returned from the spreadsheet mines.
About the author
This guide was researched and written using a wide range of sources, including Microsoft documentation, industry case studies, and practical testing of Copilot features in Excel. Pricing and feature references are accurate as of January 2026 and specific to the Australian market.
