An XDA writer this year said the quiet part loud: switching Copilot on inside Excel felt like the upgrade that should have happened years ago. Cleanup, formula drafting, and quick summaries stopped eating whole afternoons. The catch is that Copilot is one flavour of AI grafted onto one spreadsheet. The best apps for AI spreadsheets in 2026 go further, whether that means writing formulas from a plain-English brief, pulling live data from a warehouse, or answering questions about a 100k-row table without any pivot at all.
We tested eight AI spreadsheet apps that work on Windows and macOS, judged them on formula generation, data cleaning, natural-language querying, collaboration, and price, and picked the ones worth adopting alongside or instead of Excel plus Copilot.
What to look for in an AI spreadsheet app
Five things separate a helpful AI spreadsheet from a novelty add-on:
- Formula generation that reads context. A tool that writes a working XLOOKUP after you paste a column header is more useful than one that spits out generic syntax.
- Data cleaning at scale. Splitting names, standardising dates, and reconciling duplicates should survive a 200k-row table without the AI pausing to sample the first 50 rows.
- Natural-language querying. Asking “which orders shipped late in Q2” and getting an answer, a chart, and a filtered view beats writing three SUMIFS.
- Collaboration and live data. AI writes better answers when the sheet updates itself from a warehouse, a CRM, or a live API instead of a stale CSV.
- Price. Some tools price per seat, some per AI credit, some are bundled with a subscription you already pay for. The right pick depends on how many people run how many prompts a week.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Platforms | Free plan | Starting price | AI focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Excel with Copilot | Teams already on Microsoft 365 | Windows, macOS, web | No, part of paid tier | Copilot from about $20 per user monthly | Formulas, analysis, charts |
| Google Sheets with Gemini | Google Workspace teams | Web, macOS, Windows | Personal Gemini on free Google account | Bundled in mid-tier Workspace | Formulas, summaries, tables |
| Rows | Live-data dashboards | Web, macOS, Windows | Yes, limited AI credits | Paid from a modest team fee | AI functions, connectors |
| Airtable AI | Structured databases with AI fields | Web, macOS, Windows | Yes, limited AI credits | Team plans plus AI add-on | AI fields, Cobuilder |
| Bricks | Spreadsheet plus doc plus dashboard from one prompt | Web, macOS, Windows | Yes, generous personal tier | Paid team tiers | Generate whole sheets |
| Numerous.ai | Bolt-on AI inside Excel or Sheets | Windows, macOS, web | Limited free calls | From a small monthly fee | AI cell functions |
| Formula Bot | Fast formula and SQL generation | Web, Windows, macOS | Yes | From a small monthly fee | Formula and query gen |
| Sourcetable | Agentic analysis on big datasets | Web, macOS, Windows | Trial | Paid from mid-tier fee | Agent-driven analysis |
The apps
1. Microsoft Excel with Copilot, best overall for existing Microsoft 365 teams
Microsoft Excel with Copilot is the default answer for most desks in 2026 because the AI sits inside the app people already open. Ask it to clean a column, forecast next quarter, or explain what a nested IF does, and the reply lands next to the cell you clicked. The Analyse feature converts a table into a chart draft in a few seconds and lets you refine it in follow-up prompts.
Where it falls short: Copilot needs Microsoft 365 and, in most tiers, the Copilot add-on on top. Prompts sometimes stall on tables above a few hundred thousand rows, and the free web version of Excel does not ship the full Copilot experience.
Pricing:
- Free: no full Copilot on free tiers.
- Paid: Copilot Pro starts around $20 per user monthly. Copilot for Microsoft 365 for organisations sits higher and requires an existing M365 subscription.
Platforms: Windows, macOS, web, iOS, Android.
Download: Microsoft 365 Excel
Bottom line: Pick this if you already pay for Microsoft 365 and want the shortest path from “empty sheet” to “usable answer”.
2. Google Sheets with Gemini, best free way to try AI in a spreadsheet
Google Sheets wraps Gemini into the side panel and into the cells themselves. On a personal Google account, Gemini answers questions about the sheet, drafts formulas, and generates tables from a description. On Workspace, it also builds email drafts from sheet data and turns a range into a chart with a caption. The generated formulas paste in, not just render as text, which is the small detail that saves the most time.
Where it falls short: The Gemini output can trip over merged cells and irregular headers. Workspace pricing for the full AI features shifts as Google rebundles the plans, so the total per-seat cost is not always obvious.
Pricing:
- Free: Gemini on a personal Google account with limited daily calls.
- Paid: Workspace plans starting at a low mid-tier per-seat fee include Gemini in Sheets.
Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android.
Download: Google Sheets
Bottom line: The right pick for teams already on Workspace, and the easiest free way to see if AI in a spreadsheet is worth paying for.
3. Rows, best for live-data dashboards with AI functions
Rows looks like a spreadsheet and feels like a data notebook. Native connectors pull live rows from Stripe, HubSpot, Google Analytics, Notion, and dozens of others, then AI functions like =ASK and =EXTRACT operate on those rows without a copy-paste step. The Analyse chat sits in the side panel and can generate summaries, charts, and follow-up prompts against the whole workbook.
Where it falls short: The connector library covers a lot but not everything, and heavy sheets with many live queries can lag. Users coming from Excel need to relearn a few keyboard shortcuts.
Pricing:
- Free: personal use with capped AI credits and connector calls.
- Paid: team plans start at a modest per-seat monthly fee and expand credit budgets.
Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows, iOS.
Download: Rows
Bottom line: Best fit for revenue and marketing teams that want an always-fresh dashboard without writing SQL.
4. Bricks, best for generating a whole sheet from one prompt
Bricks treats a spreadsheet, a document, and a dashboard as three views of the same data. Type “monthly SaaS budget for a five-person startup” and it generates the tables, the summary paragraph, and the pie chart in one shot. The AI can also convert an existing Excel or Sheets file into an interactive dashboard with a prompt.
Where it falls short: The generated structures are opinionated and take work to reshape if the layout is not what you wanted. Compatibility with pure Excel workflows (macros, VBA, complex named ranges) is limited.
Pricing:
- Free: personal tier with a generous prompt allowance.
- Paid: team plans priced per seat monthly with more storage and prompt volume.
Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows.
Download: Bricks
Bottom line: Reach for it when the fastest path is “describe what you want” rather than “build a template”.
5. Numerous.ai, best AI bolt-on inside Excel and Sheets
Numerous.ai is a side-panel add-on that adds AI functions like =AI("classify this review as positive, neutral, or negative", A2) directly into Excel or Google Sheets. It handles categorisation, extraction, translation, and summarisation across whole columns, and it caches results so a re-run does not burn credits on rows that have not changed. The point is that everyone on the team keeps using the spreadsheet they already know.
Where it falls short: Long text columns eat credits fast, and the tool is bound to the underlying spreadsheet’s own row limits. It is an AI layer, not a spreadsheet replacement.
Pricing:
- Free: limited monthly AI calls.
- Paid: per-user monthly fee with higher call limits and business options.
Platforms: Windows, macOS, and web via the Excel add-in and Google Sheets add-on.
Download: Numerous.ai
Bottom line: The lowest-friction way to add AI to an Excel or Sheets workflow that already works.
6. Formula Bot, best for fast formula and query generation
Formula Bot started as a plain formula generator and grew into a chat-driven analysis workspace. Paste a description and it writes the Excel formula, the Sheets formula, the SQL, or the regex. Upload a CSV and its analyst chat answers questions in text and charts. The formula side is genuinely fast, and the free tier is generous enough to solve the “I forgot how INDEX/MATCH works” problem without signing up for another subscription.
Where it falls short: The analysis workspace does not replace a full spreadsheet, and large uploads sit behind the paid plan. Some generated formulas need a check against real data before you trust them.
Pricing:
- Free: daily formula and query generation allowance.
- Paid: from a small monthly fee for higher limits and file uploads.
Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS via the browser or Excel and Sheets add-ons.
Download: Formula Bot
Bottom line: Best pick when you want an AI to write a specific formula, not run your whole workbook.
7. Airtable AI, best when the data is more database than spreadsheet
Airtable was already the spreadsheet-database hybrid before AI arrived. AI Fields now run a prompt against every row (summarise this ticket, extract the vendor name, translate this reply), and Cobuilder generates whole bases from a description of the workflow. Automations chain AI outputs into Slack, email, or another table without code.
Where it falls short: Airtable prices climb quickly at team scale, and AI credits are metered separately from the base subscription. If the underlying data is genuinely a spreadsheet, not a database, the model can feel heavy.
Pricing:
- Free: personal bases with limited AI runs.
- Paid: team plans per seat monthly, plus AI credit packs.
Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android.
Download: Airtable
Bottom line: Right pick for ops and CRM-adjacent workflows where each row is a record with many fields and states.
8. Sourcetable, best AI-native spreadsheet for big datasets
Sourcetable builds the spreadsheet around an AI agent rather than adding an agent to a spreadsheet. Upload a several-million-row CSV or connect a warehouse, then ask the agent to clean, join, model, or visualise. It plans a multi-step analysis, shows the intermediate outputs, and lets you accept or reject each step. Formulas still work, and the AI shows the query it used, which is what makes the output trustworthy.
Where it falls short: It is a newer product, so integrations and community answers are still growing. It rewards analysts who can read a query, not readers who just want a chart.
Pricing:
- Free: trial to test the agent on a real dataset.
- Paid: mid-tier monthly fee for individuals, team pricing on request.
Platforms: Web, macOS, Windows.
Download: Sourcetable
Bottom line: The pick for analysts who need agentic analysis on datasets that would choke Excel, and who want to see the reasoning behind each step.
How to pick the right one
- If you want the simplest option: Microsoft Excel with Copilot, because it lives inside the app most desks already use.
- If you are on a free personal account: Google Sheets with Gemini gets you the most AI without a new subscription.
- If your team already pays for Google Workspace: stick with Google Sheets and turn on Gemini.
- If you want an AI layer without switching spreadsheets: Numerous.ai for cell-level AI, Formula Bot for one-off formulas.
- If you need live data in the sheet: Rows for connectors, Airtable AI if the shape is more database than sheet.
- If you want to describe a whole workbook and have it built: Bricks.
- If you are an analyst who wrangles multi-million-row files: Sourcetable, because Excel plus Copilot will not keep up.
- If you tried Copilot and found it useful but slow: pair it with Numerous.ai for cell-level work and keep Copilot for chart drafts and summaries.
FAQ
What is the best AI spreadsheet app in 2026?
For most people, Microsoft Excel with Copilot is the best pick because it puts AI inside the spreadsheet they already use. If the team runs on Google Workspace, Google Sheets with Gemini is the equivalent answer. Analysts working on larger datasets or building live dashboards will get more from Sourcetable or Rows.
Is Excel Copilot worth paying for?
For a knowledge worker who lives in Excel every day, yes. Copilot pays back the subscription within a few weeks by drafting formulas, cleaning columns, and turning tables into charts on request. For occasional users who open Excel once a month, a free tool like Formula Bot or Gemini on a personal Google account covers the same ground.
Which AI spreadsheet apps have a free tier?
Google Sheets with Gemini on a personal Google account, Rows, Bricks, Airtable, Numerous.ai, and Formula Bot all offer usable free tiers with limits on AI calls or data volume. Microsoft Excel with Copilot and Sourcetable are effectively paid-only, though Sourcetable offers a trial.
Can AI clean data in a spreadsheet automatically?
Yes. Copilot, Gemini, and Numerous.ai handle common cleanup tasks (splitting names, standardising dates, fixing casing, deduplicating rows) with a plain-English prompt. Sourcetable and Rows go further because they can pull the raw data live, so the cleaning step becomes part of a repeatable workflow rather than a one-off.
Which AI spreadsheet is best for very large datasets?
Sourcetable is designed for datasets that would slow Excel to a crawl, and its agent shows the query behind each answer so you can verify the result. Rows also handles large connected datasets well when the source is a warehouse or database rather than a raw file.
Do I need to write formulas anymore with AI in the spreadsheet?
Not usually, but knowing how to read one still matters. AI writes the formula or query on request, but you need to spot a wrong join, a broken date parse, or a bad assumption before it ships to a stakeholder. Treat AI as a fast first draft, not a final answer.
