Oct 7 / Susan Daniels

Will ChatGPT replace Excel in the field of data analysis?

Why did this worry suddenly come up?

In 2024, my company had a round of layoffs, and the business line I was responsible for got cut. I decided to leave on my own. With the economy the way it is, job security feels like it’s disappearing.

Earlier this year, I joined a new company, and while working there, I started building the VeryCareer brand in my spare time. The past six months have been full of long nights, and to be honest, it’s been tough. But my motivation was simple: if I can’t rely on the corporate world to sustain me, then I’ll create my own path and sustain myself.

Given my 15 years experience in online education and 8 years with Excel, I knew that many professionals lacked the essential office skills needed to succeed. That’s when I decided to focus on Excel training, launching hands-on courses where you learn by doing. My hope is to provide something helpful, maybe even comforting, to professionals who are struggling in their careers.

But I’ve also noticed that many YouTubers are starting to hype up using ChatGPT for data analysis, and there are some data analysis forums on Reddit where users are eagerly discussing how to use ChatGPT for data analysis.

This gave me a sense of crisis. Is Excel slowly heading towards decline and obsolescence? Will the courses I teach gradually lose their market, as people stop using Excel for data analysis and instead turn to embrace ChatGPT? Some ChatGPT enthusiasts around me are also constantly urging me to embrace ChatGPT.

Calm down and reflect.

So I decided to dive in and do my own research, using ChatGPT for a month of Excel data analysis. What I found was that it was a complete disaster, nowhere near as good as those YouTubers claimed. ChatGPT is just too unreliable! It often gives ridiculously wrong answers!

One day a friend came to me and talk about Microsoft's stock. Then it hit me: as long as Microsoft Office remains dominant, the demand for Excel will never fade. There will always be people who need to learn it. Otherwise, why would hundreds of thousands of people be discussing Excel in this subreddit? Sure, there are folks who can analyze data with Python or GPT, but they’re in the minority. In the real world, Excel is still the mainstream tool that businesses rely on. It’s what companies recognize and trust.

As of now, GPT is far from being as reliable or stable as people might think. When using GPT for Excel data analysis, you often run into strange errors. Large models still have a lot of accuracy issues, which makes it hard for them to be widely used in fields like mathematical statistics where precision is key. That’s why it’s tough to rely on GPT for data analysis in the workplace.

One more thing to add: GPT is essentially a high-level language. It seems simple — just type and you can use it — but it’s actually more complex than it looks. It demands quite a lot from the user. You need to understand logic, know how to define your tasks, and be able to clearly communicate your instructions to GPT. But here’s the catch: language, by nature, is ambiguous. Trying to use vague language to achieve a precise result is inherently difficult. That’s why, in many cases, GPT can be less reliable than more structured tools like Excel or Python. This is just my take on GPT — it might not be entirely correct, so I welcome any feedback.

My debate with Reddit users

I posted my opinion on Reddit, and many users there debated with me about the feasibility of using ChatGPT for data analysis. Some of the points were quite thought-provoking, and I’ve noted them down.
The debate on Reddit about Excel vs. ChatGPT
Some of the points were quite thought-provoking, and I’ve noted them down:

MOGILITND: What.....are you talking about when you saying GPT? As in ChatGPT? No one who is seriously working in data analytics is using ChatGPT for things that Excel does.

Obviously LLMs are not here to replace spreadsheet applications. They can hardly be said to even do the same things. So I'm not sure who exactly you're trying to argue with in this post.

Me: You can check out other sections on YouTube or Reddit—there are tons of people exploring how to use GPT for data analysis. It’s just that mastering GPT can be a bit tricky.

MOGILITND: Okay, I mean don't get me wrong, I use Gemini practically every day at work to help with basic coding tasks. But, if I have, say, a large CSV that I want to do some EDA on, I don't see how an LLM is going to help me too much there, or even really economize my time in the way it does for coding tasks. And as someone who spends a lot of their work hours considering the technical abilities of LLMs (I work in tech), I really don't ever trust AI with real data. It may help with specific steps in my process, but as of now, I'm not feeding it real data and asking any sort of technical questions about it. The tech really just isn't trustworthy yet.

Annette_Runner: I don’t think microsoft office is that safe. With all this SaaS for every business function, I could see a world where spreadsheets are nixed. Especially as Microsoft repeatedly drops the ball on security and business interruption.

Me: Yeah, you're talking about the other side of things, and you're right. I can see you’ve got a keen eye for new trends. But if we look at it from an average perspective, Microsoft is still the king of the spreadsheet world. It’s so powerful that even small mistakes get blown out of proportion—that’s just how things go when you're at the top. All the SaaS tools you see today, once they get big enough, will run into similar issues like Microsoft does. In fact, Microsoft is a really impressive company. Just look at the market; it’s been given a 35x PE ratio, which in finance terms means it's expected to keep making money for 35 more years. So, at least for now, Microsoft isn’t going anywhere, and Excel is going to remain the go-to for quite a long time.

Annette_Runner: I think Google also has a large marketshare with their office software suite. But Microsoft can also improve their products. It will be interesting to see.

I believe that this debate will continue, and as ChatGPT becomes more powerful and its reasoning abilities improve, similar voices will only grow louder. But this is also the challenge Microsoft faces, isn’t it? None of us can predict the future. We’ve also seen that Microsoft has launched its own LLM, and no one wants to fall behind when it comes to the future. Who knows, maybe Excel will be equipped with LLM capabilities in the future? Let’s wait and see.
GenAIOps - Microsoft Azure Machine Learning

My decisions and my actions

I’ve gone on a bit, but my point is that Excel skills are timeless and have a wide range of practical applications. Every professional should take the time to learn it to boost their work efficiency and increase their competitiveness in the workplace.

So, our team spent six months developing an Excel course, which is delivered in a boot camp format.

Here are the features of this course:
1. Comprehensive Learning ContentTailored learning plans built from the ground up for beginners, combining theory with practical application to ensure you avoid abstract, textbook-only content. Real-world case studies help you tackle practical problems.

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3. Milestone-Based Course StructureCustom-designed checkpoints with carefully crafted tasks to ensure steady progress in skill development, empowering you to advance your career with confidence.

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We welcome everyone to try it out. The 3-day Excel trial camp costs only $9.9, and the full boot camp lasts for 36 days, covering 130 high-frequency Excel skills. It takes you from beginner to expert through a fun, challenge-based format, with one challenge unlocked each day. In just 36+1 days, you can complete the course. This is our grandly launched Ultimate Excel Course, where we offer hands-on learning with step-by-step guidance and 1-on-1 real-time support!

Here's the bootcamp link:
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In the future, we will continue to develop more practical courses around career development to help people enhance their workplace competitiveness and land better, higher-paying jobs, especially in these tough economic times.