Shortcut for Excel - a really cool (And Free) AI Tool for Excel worth a test drive.
Hey everyone,
I wanted to share a fantastic AI tool for Excel that I’ve become a big fan of. It’s called Shortcut—and no, this isn’t an ad. I'm just an enthusiastic fan with a friendly recommendation. Besides, who doesn’t love a good shortcut?
If you’ve been using Copilot in Excel, you might want to buckle up… because you’re about to crash! That thing gets stuck on easy things and only makes a mess every time I use it - I suggest avoiding. Meanwhile, Shortcut is a free Excel add-in that’s genuinely impressive. To install it, in excel go to File > Get Add-ins, search for “Shortcut,” and click install. Even this old guy managed it without calling tech support.
Once installed, it appears as an icon on your top ribbon. Its capabilities go well beyond what I expected, leaving Copilot in the hanger.
For context, one of my many hats is building financial proformas for residential land development (finished lots for builders). Sometimes the best play is to sell “paper lots” once entitlements are secured but before construction so I wanted a tab that automatically calculated that as an alternative. Instead of me building a new tab from scratch, I gave Shortcut a description of what I needed: create new tab and tab name, purpose, which existing tabs to pull data from, to add a new tab, key results, etc. I kept the instructions fairly light to test how smart it really was.
The result? Wow!
I watched it think, plan, build, error-check, revise, and rebuild—all in real time. In under five minutes, I had a new, fully functional “Paper Lots” tab. It appeared to understand what I asked for and went well beyond its instructions. It did make a couple of logical assumptions in error as I hadn’t fully specified everything (like including construction costs on paper lots), but after I clarified the issue and why, it fixed everything in about 30 seconds. It's not like I said use cell A23...it read the proforma, found what it was looking for from my general instructions, and created the data or linked to it. The new tab matched the formatting, structure, and logic of the rest of the model perfectly. Basically, it was seamless and more importantly, truly useful.
(Pro tip: Always verify AI output. Remember, AI technically stands for “Always Incorrect” unless proven otherwise…)
I then asked it to create a comparison chart showing returns on finished lots versus paper lots and where to place it on my sheet. It moved data already on the tab along with the formula's and links to make room and then added a great chart in under two minutes. This time, no errors.
Bottom line: For me, this tool delivers real, tangible value for financial modeling and complex Excel work......and zero is a great price.
The only catch? It’s currently free, but usage-based limits apply (it’s clearly still in beta). So far, my moderate use for creating new functionality hasn’t triggered any charges. The good news is, it doesn't appear expensive if you use it too much, but I'm just frugal. If you live in Excel and work with models, do yourself a favor and check it out. Highly recommended.
Would love to hear if anyone else has tried it—or if you have other strong Excel AI tools worth knowing about.
Stephen Harris - Avventerra Capital