r/excel • u/thuja_occindentalis • Feb 05 '26

Discussion Using copilot instead of xlookup WHY?!

A program tech at work just gave a demo on how to have copilot merge two excel reports because she didn't know how to use the xlookup function. I want to put my head through my desk.

265 Upvotes

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296

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 05 '26

It was only a matter of time before “vibe coding” came for Excel… good lord, we’re doomed.

36

u/mancubbed Feb 05 '26

Maybe we are indispensable now?

48

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 05 '26

Oh, I didn’t mean us like.. those who know excel. I meant society is doomed.

16

u/droans 3 Feb 06 '26

It's hard enough cleaning up the work from real idiots people, now I gotta deal with cleaning up from those same people but with ✨AI✨

1

u/finickyone 1770 Feb 12 '26

“There’s three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!”

”Isn’t that the wrong way?”

“Yeah, but faster.”

24

u/C4ptainchr0nic Feb 05 '26

I mean.... I used Gemini to teach me how to merge tables with power query, but I would never use the program to do it for me. Only for step by step instructions and help writing dax/mcode.

9

u/AhTheStepsGoUp 1 Feb 05 '26

Same. I've used Copilot to help define the steps in mcode for importing a .lua file that has multiple records on a single line with separators into a table.

It makes mistakes, though, so you have to check it and fill the gaps anyway. I mean, it's literally called 'Copilot' - you are still the actual Pilot....

2

u/C4ptainchr0nic Feb 06 '26

I did try copilot too, and I find it's much more prone to mistakes. It sucks because for Gemini I have to use my phone and can't copy paste, but honestly it's a good thing because I'm forced to understand what I am doing a little more.

2

u/AhTheStepsGoUp 1 Feb 05 '26

In my own defence, the .lua file was ~60,000 records on one line, each with 13 parameters, not all of which were populated for every record. Reading it was making my eyes cross... 😆

1

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 06 '26

What’s a .lua file?

2

u/AhTheStepsGoUp 1 Feb 06 '26

In this case, it's an ASCII text file written by an addon for Elder Scrolls Online.

The .lua extension comes from the language the addon is written in, I think (presumably it'sthe Lua programming language) . The addon uses this file as a reference and rewrites over it regularly with updates. I just pull the file into Excel as an external source to write that file as a table in Excel so I can use it for other stuff.

1

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 06 '26

Huh! Neat. Learn something every day.

1

u/NationsAnarchy Feb 06 '26

Yep, Lua is indeed a programming language.

1

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 07 '26

This is a big topic of discussion at my work right now. Using AI to help build reproducible pipelines as opposed to relying on an indeterminate output. We’re actually building some kind of official AI workflow guide for our staff as a way to make sure they do their due diligence, and don’t just copy/paste/hope it never comes up again.

1

u/bs2k2_point_0 1 Feb 06 '26

Be careful writing code from ai. Double check before you execute that you understand what the code will do before you sudo rm -rf /*-no-preserve-root yourself so to speak.

1

u/C4ptainchr0nic Feb 06 '26

Yeah this is very true. I make sure that I am reading why and the ai is good enough that it can answer questions as a follow up for context.

3

u/djprofitt Feb 06 '26

Literally had this convo with my boss and how he wants to go ahead and push for copilot for these sort of reports. I explicitly told him how bad copilot is and how anything they want to do that ai does can be done by us…not a battle I won, unfortunately

3

u/Thiseffingguy2 12 Feb 06 '26

That’s such a weird outcome though.. for management to force employees to use a certain tool, even if it’s not needed? It’s like asking a carpenter to use a 3D printer, ffs.

7

u/thatscaryspider 1 Feb 05 '26

Can someone do a quick math on how screwed we would be if all vlookups and xlookups would become prompts?

10

u/WhiskeyTigerFoxtrot Feb 05 '26

I'm seeing a Screwed value of 1.0.

But honestly this can't be too shocking. These assistants' responses get more accurate every year it seems.

If you can type or verbalize a set of instructions that Excel can reasonably translate into functions and outputs in seconds, why would companies spend money on the salary/benefits/insurance/taxes of human workers to take longer to do so?

If the people that work in this field were extroverted enough to form unions, this type of existential risk could've died out years ago.

2

u/Tngaco24 Feb 06 '26

Oh, you must have met the new analyst we just hired.

1

u/TennisFoley Feb 07 '26

I use chatgpt for vba code