I do have to say, llms are pretty good at speeding up figuring out excel formulas. It still messes up a lot, but laying out and explaining the syntax is nice.
I still feel disgusted using it, but I see why some do.
Now searching and learning the formulas is still better. But when you have limited time at work its a nice shortcut. However its just that, a shortcut, that shouldn’t really be trusted.
The big problem with using an LLM for formulas in Excel is you need those numbers to be right, and if you don’t fully understand what Excel is doing to your numbers you can’t know when the numbers are wrong nor why they’re wrong.
I even had one manager once who took this to the extreme and said no formulas ever just in case the individual doesn’t understand them (he also happened to be the worst manager I ever worked for)
OP says it’s good, it just messes up a lot
“No formulas ever” what? So you can’t even add numbers?
This dude was honestly kinda insane. The most charitable interpretation is that he had a specific idea in his head of exactly how a given task should get done based on what works well for him and any employees deviating from that approach to the task are doing so incorrectly. He also did not maintain up to date documentation of any of his expected workflows so you’d better hope you remember his expected workflow when he comes to yell at you (and he yelled a lot!)
Notably he didn’t like automating any frequent tasks nor creating templates because he seemed more focused on what happens if the process goes wrong than what happens if a person makes a mistake. I would argue that humans are incredibly fallible and it’s better to have the computer automate the parts of the task that can be automated so that the human can focus on the parts that can’t be and work more quickly and efficiently, but he was far more concerned about the rare instances where the automation might break.
I think the time spent using a llm and checking if it’s right,for a formula can better be used googling which formula to use.
I agree with you completely, and that way you actually learn what the formula does and its limitations, so you can comfortably use it again next time. Instead of simply relying on the AI to figure it out again.