Microsoft, in its ongoing effort to AI-ify every product it has, is now adding it right into the cells of Excel. Available on Monday to beta users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, a new COPILOT function allows you to task Redmond's AI with performing generative tasks right in, for example, C2 or B23.

It's a smart strategic move on the part of the software behemoth, which is trying to justify its AI datacenter buildout by bundling Copilot into anything and everything. Excel is perhaps the stickiest of Microsoft Office products, essential and irreplaceable for many finance functions.

In a blog post and YouTube video, Head of Product Excel Core Catherine Pidgeon explains the advantages of the new function and how to invoke it.

As with any function in Excel, you preface it with an equals operator,

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