So you want AI in your spreadsheets? Copilot is sitting right there in the ribbon, your boss keeps forwarding you articles about it, and you have a feeling you should be doing something with it by now.
Let me be clear where “we” at Stringfest Analytics stand: if your data lives in loose ranges, merged cells, and workbooks that only make sense to the person who built them, do not even bother with Copilot yet.
AI in Excel runs on structure. When your data is in proper Tables and your cleanup happens in Power Query instead of by hand every month, Copilot behaves like a capable assistant. When it is not, Copilot struggles the same way a human analyst would, and you will walk away convinced the whole thing is a gimmick.
So this ladder starts before the AI does. Every rung says what it is, what it costs, and the signs that you are ready for the next one. The free rungs come first, and if you jump ahead to a paid rung and it does not stick, come back down one.
1. Catch a Modern Excel Demo Day
What it costs: nothing, and about an hour.
Before you spend a dollar, watch what modern Excel actually looks like when someone drives it well. I run free Modern Excel Demo Days regularly, and the whole point is to show Tables, Power Query, and the analysis features working together on realistic data. Dates move around, so check the events page for what is open right now. If nothing is running when you read this, get on the list there and you will hear when the next one opens.
This rung tells you where you stand. Plenty of people sit in on a session and realize the gap between them and AI readiness is smaller than they feared. Others realize the gap is Power Query, and that is a far more useful discovery than another article about prompting.
Move up when: you can name which modern Excel skills you have and which ones you are missing.
2. Read Modern Data Analytics in Excel
What it costs: the price of a book, or nothing at all, and a few weeks at a comfortable pace.
Modern Data Analytics in Excel (O’Reilly) is the foundations book for this ladder. It covers the modern Excel stack that AI depends on: Tables, Power Query, dynamic arrays, and the newer analysis features, with AI and Python in Excel in the picture too. This is the rung that fixes the “handed a mess” problem for good.
Seriously… get it from your library if you want. I mean that. Libraries carry it in print and through their ebook apps, and a borrowed copy that gets read beats a purchased copy that sits on a shelf.
One practical note so you do not buy it twice: the ebook is included free with AI for Excel in a Week down at rung 5. If you already know you are headed there, wait.
Move up when: your data lives in Tables, your cleanup happens in Power Query, and you want to know what AI adds on top.
3. Take Excel Must-Knows for AI Success
What it costs: $15, and under 30 minutes.
This short course is the bridge between modern Excel and Copilot-powered Excel, and it exists because of a pattern I kept seeing: people whose Copilot results felt vague and unpredictable, where the real problem was never the AI. In three focused videos it covers the small set of fundamentals Copilot depends on: how proper Tables give it structure and context, how PivotTables and the built-in analysis tools prepare data it can summarize and visualize, and how Power Query shapes data once so Copilot can analyze it consistently. Example workbooks come with it.
If you did the reading at rung 2, this is where it snaps into place against the AI specifically. If you skipped rung 2, this is the minimum viable version of it.
Move up when: Copilot has stopped feeling random and started feeling like an assistant you can predict.
4. Use LinkedIn Learning through your library
What it costs: very often nothing, and a few hours.
Did you know? LinkedIn Learning comes free with a public library card in Ohio and in a lot of other library systems. Check with your local library before you pay for anything, mine included. If your card works, the whole catalog opens up for the price of a card you already have.
My course Excel with Copilot: AI-Driven Data Analysis lives there, and it takes you through using Copilot for real analysis work rather than parlor tricks. You can also take it as part of the free Microsoft Copilot for Productivity certificate path from Microsoft and LinkedIn, which is a nice line for a resume and costs you nothing either way.
Move up when: you can follow along in a video and then stall the second you point the same technique at your own workbook.
5. Join AI for Excel in a Week
What it costs: see the current listing, and five lunch hours.
A recorded course cannot answer a question about your workbook. That is the whole reason this rung exists. AI for Excel in a Week is five live 60-minute sessions that build day over day: connecting Excel to reliable shared data, preparing data so analysis and AI actually work, using Copilot and Python in Excel for real insight, automating the work you should not be doing by hand, and finally designing copilots and agents around how your team actually works.
Everything is recorded, so you are not giving up the replay by showing up live. The Modern Data Analytics in Excel ebook and a certificate of attendance come with it. Take this one when you want a working skill rather than a tour.
Move up when: the skill is yours and the problem changes from learning this to keeping up with it.
6. Join the Modern Excel AI Stack membership
What it costs: monthly, and as much or as little time as you want to give it.
AI in Excel moves faster than any one course can keep up with. Copilot picks up new capabilities, agents get more useful, and something is different every quarter. Nobody wants to start over each time.
The membership is where the ongoing content and assets live, and it includes a question drop, so you can put your own question in front of me instead of guessing. This is the rung for people who already have the skill and now want to stay current.
How the rungs fit together
These are not five separate things to buy. They answer different questions, in order.
- Rung 1 costs nothing and tells you where you stand.
- Rung 2 builds the modern Excel foundation the AI runs on, and your library may hand it to you free.
- Rung 3 connects that foundation to Copilot specifically, in under half an hour.
- Rung 4 gives you guided practice, often free through your library.
- Rung 5 is where somebody answers your question out loud, about your data.
- Rung 6 keeps you current after the skill is yours.
Most people do not climb all five, and that is fine. But nobody should skip straight to rung 5 from a workbook full of merged cells. The AI will not save you from that. The foundations will.
If this is for your team
Everything above assumes one person deciding how to spend their own lunch hours. If you are sizing this up for a department, the same warning applies with more force: rolling out Copilot licenses to a team whose data practices are shaky buys you a very expensive way to get vague answers faster. The foundations question comes first at team scale too, and it usually points at Power Query and data structure before it points at any AI feature.
If that is the kind of thing your team needs, my How I work page explains how engagements get scoped, or you can just get in touch and we will figure out whether it is a fit.