Learning Generative AI Tools for Excel

Chapter 2. Getting Started with ChatGPT and Excel

In high school, I had to memorize trigonometry formulas by heart to solve math exercises. These were also very complex formulas that contained sines and cosines, additions and subtractions, and so on. After a lot of work, I managed to learn them well and was able to solve the trigonometry exercises perfectly. Periodically, however, I had to review the formulas aloud—otherwise, I would forget them. I was 17 at the time, and my brain was very trained. More than 20 years have passed since then, and I remember very little of those trigonometry formulas. Our brains tend to forget what we don’t use, especially if it involves mnemonic formulas.

The same thing happens with all available Excel functions. It is impossible to remember all the functions that Excel makes available to carry out specific calculations. You may have a more or less general idea about the name of the function to use, but you often don’t remember the syntax or the specific name. ChatGPT can help you with this, as it can tell you not only which function to apply each time but also how to apply it.

In this chapter, you’ll see how to use ChatGPT to generate the formula or function you need. You will learn a strategy for communicating with ChatGPT to make it generate the correct output for your dataset: not something general but specific and valid to your dataset. When I talk about communicating, I’m referring to the literal meaning of transmitting a message to someone. ...