Copilot, Can You Crash That Financial Analysis?
August 22, 2025
No AI. Just a dinobaby working the old-fashioned way.
The ever-insouciant online service The Verge published a story about Microsoft, smart software, and Excel. “Microsoft Excel Adds Copilot AI to Help Fill in Spreadsheet Cells” reports:
Microsoft Excel is testing a new AI-powered function that can automatically fill cells in your spreadsheets, which is similar to the feature that Google Sheets rolled out in June.
Okay, quite specific intentionality: Fill in cells. And a dash of me-too. I like it.
However, the key statement in my opinion is:
The COPILOT function comes with a couple of limitations, as it can’t access information outside your spreadsheet, and you can only use it to calculate 100 functions every 10 minutes. Microsoft also warns against using the AI function for numerical calculations or in “high-stakes scenarios” with legal, regulatory, and compliance implications, as COPILOT “can give incorrect responses.”
I don’t want to make a big deal out of this passage, but I will do it anyway. First, Microsoft makes clear that the outputs can be incorrect. Second, don’t use it too much because I assume one will have to pay to use a system that “can give incorrect results.” In short, MSFT is throttling Excel’s Copilot. Doesn’t everyone want to explore numbers with an addled Copilot known to flub numbers in a jet aircraft at 0.8 Mach?
I want to quote from “It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes”:
Think of it. Forty-five hundred years ago, if you were a Sumerian scribe, while your calculations on the world’s first abacus might have been laborious, you could be assured they’d be correct. Four hundred years ago, if you were palling around with William Oughtred, his new slide rule may have been a bit intimidating at first, but you could know its output was correct. In the 1980s, you could have bought the cheapest, shittiest Casio-knockoff calculator you could find, and used it exclusively, for every day of the rest of your life, and never once would it give anything but a correct answer. You could use it today! But now we have Microsoft apparently determining that “unpredictability” was something that some number of its customers wanted in their calculators.
I know that I sure do. I want to use a tool that is likely to convert “high-stakes scenarios” into an embarrassing failure. I mean who does not want this type of digital Copilot?
Why do I find this Excel with Copilot software interesting?
- It illustrates that accuracy has given way to close enough for horseshoes. Impressive for a company that can issue an update that could kill one’s storage devices.
- Microsoft no longer dances around hallucinations. The company just says, “The outputs can be wrong.” But I wonder, “Does Microsoft really mean it?” What about Red Bull-fueled MBAs handling one’s retirement accounts? Yeah, those people will be really careful.
- The article does not come and and say, “Looks like the AI rocket ship is losing altitude.”
- I cannot imagine sitting in a meeting and observing the rationalizations offered to justify releasing a product known to make NUMERICAL errors.
Net net: We are learning about the quality of [a] managerial processes at Microsoft, [b] the judgment of employees, and [c] the sheer craziness that an attorney said, “Sure, release the product just include an upfront statement that it will make mistakes.” Nothing builds trust more than a company anchored in customer-centric values.
Stephen E Arnold, August 22, 2025
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