You Have an Excel File and Want ChatGPT to Work on Every Row
Most people searching for ChatGPT for Excel have the same situation. There is a workbook with a few hundred rows of transactions, products, contacts or comments, and they want a model to read each row and write something next to it: a category, a description, a cleaned value, a summary. Doing it by copy and paste, one row at a time, is not realistic.
I will say the important thing early. SheetAI, the tool I build, runs in Google Sheets. It does not run inside Microsoft Excel. So this guide is honest about what that means: there are three real routes, and one of them involves moving your workbook into Google Sheets and back.
Below I cover when each route makes sense, then give the exact steps for the third one, since that is the route that lets you run GPT on hundreds of rows with a formula. I also cover asking ChatGPT to write Excel formulas for you, because that is a different job and many searchers want exactly that.
Your Three Options for ChatGPT in Excel
There is no official ChatGPT button inside Excel, and "ChatGPT excel plugin" results are a mix of third-party add-ins of varying quality. In practice you have three ways to get there.
Option 1: Paste Your Data Into the ChatGPT App
Copy a range from Excel, paste it into ChatGPT and ask a question. This is a good route when:
- You want an answer about the data as a whole ("which of these categories looks odd?")
- You want ChatGPT to write an Excel formula for you (more on that below)
- You have a small table, a few dozen rows at most
It is a poor route for hundreds of rows where you want one output per row. The output comes back as chat text, you copy it back, and the alignment between rows is easy to break.
Option 2: Copilot in Excel
Microsoft has its own AI assistant, Copilot, built into Excel. It is available on certain Microsoft 365 plans, and what you get depends on your plan and your organisation settings, so check with your admin or Microsoft before planning around it.
Option 3: Open the Workbook in Google Sheets and Use GPT Formulas
Google Sheets can open .xlsx files directly. Once the file is there, an add-on can give you a =SHEETAI() formula, which sends the text of a cell to a model and returns the answer in the cell, like any other function. You fill it down the column and get one result per row. When you are done you download the sheet back as .xlsx.
That is the route the rest of this guide is about. It is the one that scales to hundreds of rows, and it is the closest thing to GPT for Excel that works today for per-row jobs, as long as you accept the round trip through Google Sheets.
What You Need
- A Google account and the .xlsx file you want to work on.
- The SheetAI add-on, installed from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
- Either your own OpenAI API key (SheetAI is free to use with your own key, and you pay OpenAI directly), or a hosted plan, which needs no key. Hosted plans start at $12/month, see pricing.
After installing, open a sheet and go to Extensions > SheetAI App > Launch. The sidebar opens. If you use your own key, paste it into the sidebar settings. The get started page has the full walkthrough, and the general guide to using ChatGPT in Google Sheets covers the formula basics.
How to Open an Excel File in Google Sheets
If you have never done it, here is how to open an Excel file in Google Sheets. There are two ways and both are quick.
Method A: Upload to Drive and open.
- Go to Google Drive and click
New > File upload. Pick your .xlsx file. - Right click the uploaded file and choose
Open with > Google Sheets. - Google may offer to convert it. Converting makes a native Google Sheets copy, which is what you want, because add-on formulas only work in a native sheet.
Method B: Import into an existing sheet.
- Open a blank Google Sheet.
- Choose
File > Import > Uploadand select the workbook. - Pick "Replace spreadsheet" or "Insert new sheet(s)".
Either way, work on a copy. Keep the original file untouched in a folder somewhere, for reasons I get to in the limits section.
Step by Step: Run GPT on Every Row and Export Back to Excel
Here is the full workflow, using a transaction export as the example.
Step 1: Install SheetAI and Add a Key
Install the add-on, launch it from the Extensions menu, and either paste your OpenAI key in the sidebar settings or choose a hosted plan.
Step 2: Write the Formula in the First Row
Put your inputs in column A and a header in column B. In B2 write:
=SHEETAI("Categorise this bank transaction as one of: Groceries, Transport, Eating Out, Subscriptions, Utilities, Other. Reply with the category only. Transaction: "&A2, 300, 0.4, "4o-m")
The arguments are the prompt, the maximum tokens (300 is plenty for a short answer), the temperature and the model. "4o-m" is GPT-4o mini, which is the cheap option and usually enough for per-row jobs. For categorising, I would drop the temperature to 0 so the same input gives the same label.
Step 3: Fill Down in Batches
Select B2, copy it, and paste it down the next 50 to 100 rows. Google Sheets custom functions time out after about 30 seconds per cell, so I fill long columns in batches instead of pasting into 5,000 rows at once. Results are cached, so a prompt that has already run does not get billed twice.
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Transaction | Category |
| 2 | TESCO STORES 3412 LONDON | Groceries |
| 3 | TFL TRAVEL CH TFL.GOV.UK | Transport |
| 4 | NETFLIX.COM 866-579-7172 | Subscriptions |
| 5 | PRET A MANGER 0231 | Eating Out |
| 6 | THAMES WATER UTIL DD | Utilities |
| 7 | AMZN MKTP UK*2K4TQ | Other |
Step 4: Freeze the Results With Paste Special
This is the step people skip, and it is the one that matters for Excel. Select column B, copy it, then use Edit > Paste special > Values only.
Why: =SHEETAI() is a custom Google Sheets function. It does not exist in Excel. If you download the sheet with live formulas, those cells will show errors when opened in Excel, because Excel has no idea what to do with them. Paste values replaces each formula with the text it produced, so the results survive the export. There is a longer explanation in the page on preventing formula recalculation.
Step 5: Download as .xlsx
Choose File > Download > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx). Open the downloaded file in Excel and check that the new column holds plain text and the original columns look as expected.
More Worked Examples
Write Product Descriptions From an Inventory Workbook
If your workbook is a stock list with product names and a few attributes, you can generate a description per row. Put the attributes together in the prompt:
=SHEETAI("Write a one-line product description for "&A2&", material: "&B2&". Plain language, no hype.", 200, 0.4, "4o-m")
| A | B | C | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Product | Material | Description |
| 2 | Linen throw blanket | Stonewashed linen | A stonewashed linen throw, light enough to use all summer. |
| 3 | Soy wax candle | Soy wax, fig and cedar scent | A hand-poured soy candle with a warm fig and cedar scent. |
| 4 | Water bottle | Stainless steel | A stainless steel bottle that keeps drinks cold through the day. |
| 5 | Serving board | Acacia wood | An acacia wood board for cheese, bread and sharing plates. |
| 6 | Coffee set | Glazed ceramic | A glazed ceramic coffee set for two, with cups and a small pot. |
For a fuller version of this workflow, including SEO titles, see the guide to an AI product description generator in Google Sheets.
Clean a Contact List
Contact lists exported from Excel are usually messy: shouting capitals, stray titles, company names written five ways. For simple jobs use built-in functions such as =PROPER(A2) and =TRIM(A2). For the fuzzy ones, a formula like this works:
=SHEETAI("Rewrite this person name in proper case, remove any titles like Mr or Dr, and return only the name: "&A2, 100, 0, "4o-m")
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raw name | Clean name |
| 2 | DR. ANITA RAO | Anita Rao |
| 3 | mr john smith | John Smith |
| 4 | PRIYA SHARMA (sales) | Priya Sharma |
| 5 | o brien, sean | Sean O Brien |
| 6 | Ms Li Wei | Li Wei |
| 7 | tom hughes | Tom Hughes |
Summarise Comments or Survey Answers
For free-text comments, use the summarise function:
=SHEETAI_SUMMARIZE(A2)
| A | B | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Comment | Summary |
| 2 | I ordered on Monday and it arrived Friday, which was fine, but the box was crushed and one glass was cracked. Support replaced it quickly though. | Slow-ish delivery and a damaged item, but support replaced it quickly. |
| 3 | Love the product, wish it came in more colours. | Positive, wants more colour options. |
| 4 | Checkout kept failing on my phone, had to use my laptop. | Mobile checkout failed; completed on desktop. |
| 5 | Great value. Would buy again. | Positive, good value. |
| 6 | The size chart is wrong, I ordered a medium and it fits like a small. | Size chart inaccurate, runs small. |
If you want to sort comments into themes rather than summarise them, see the guide to classifying data automatically in Google Sheets.
Asking ChatGPT to Write Excel Formulas
A lot of the demand for "chatgpt in excel" is really about formulas. You do not need an add-in for this. Describe your sheet to ChatGPT in the app, including the column letters and what a row looks like, and ask for the formula. Two examples of the kind of thing it handles well.
A nested IF. Prompt: "In Excel, column C has a score from 0 to 100. Write a formula for D2 that returns Distinction for 75 and above, Merit for 60 to 74, Pass for 40 to 59, and Fail below 40." A reasonable answer:
=IF(C2>=75,"Distinction",IF(C2>=60,"Merit",IF(C2>=40,"Pass","Fail")))
An XLOOKUP. Prompt: "Sheet Orders has product IDs in column B. Sheet Products has IDs in column A and prices in column C. Write a formula for Orders D2 that returns the price, or Not found." A reasonable answer:
=XLOOKUP(B2, Products!A:A, Products!C:C, "Not found")
Two cautions. First, tell ChatGPT which Excel version you use, because XLOOKUP is not in older versions. Second, test the formula on a few rows you can check by hand before filling it down. Formulas that look right can still reference the wrong column.
Prompt Tips for Per-Row Jobs
- Give the allowed answers. "One of: A, B, C" beats "categorise this".
- Say "reply with the answer only". Otherwise models add sentences you then have to strip.
- Use temperature 0 for categorising and cleaning, and a higher one (around 0.4 or above) only for writing.
- For fixed categories, try
=SHEETAI_CLASSIFY(A2, "Groceries, Transport, Other"), which returns exactly one label. The classify docs list the options.
Limits and When Not to Use This
I would rather you know the downsides before you start.
Round trips can break things. Macros, pivot tables, some conditional formatting, data validation and certain chart types may not survive the trip through Google Sheets and back. That is why I say work on a copy. A neat trick is to export only the new column and paste it into your original workbook in Excel, instead of replacing the whole file.
Confidential files. Uploading a workbook to Google Drive and sending cell text to an AI provider moves your data outside your Excel environment. If the file contains customer data, financial records or anything covered by a company policy, check the policy first. In some organisations Copilot inside Microsoft 365 is the approved choice for that reason, and that is a good enough reason to use it.
Spot-check everything. AI output can be wrong or inconsistent, especially on ambiguous rows. Read a sample before you trust a column.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use ChatGPT directly inside Excel?
There is no official ChatGPT feature inside Excel. You can paste data into the ChatGPT app, use Microsoft Copilot where your Microsoft 365 plan includes it, or use a third-party add-in. SheetAI runs in Google Sheets, so with it you open the workbook in Sheets first.
Is there a ChatGPT Excel plugin I can install?
Several third-party Excel add-ins connect to OpenAI. I cannot vouch for them in general, so check reviews and the permissions they ask for. SheetAI is a Google Sheets add-on, not an Excel plugin.
How do I open an Excel file in Google Sheets?
Upload the .xlsx to Google Drive, right click it and choose Open with > Google Sheets, or open a blank sheet and use File > Import > Upload. Work on a copy so the original stays safe.
Will the AI results still be there when I download the file as .xlsx?
Only if you freeze them first. Copy the result column and use Edit > Paste special > Values only, then download with File > Download > Microsoft Excel (.xlsx). Live =SHEETAI() formulas do not exist in Excel and would show errors.
What does it cost?
SheetAI is free with your own OpenAI key, and you pay OpenAI for usage. Hosted plans need no key and start at $12/month, see pricing.
Try It on a Small Sample First
Take a copy of your workbook, open it in Google Sheets, and run one formula on ten rows before you commit to the whole file. If the output is what you wanted, fill down in batches, paste values and export. You can install SheetAI from the Google Workspace Marketplace or start with the get started guide.