Spreadsheets have long been the workhorse of data organization, calculation, and analysis. From simple budgets to complex financial models, their grid-based structure provides a powerful way to manage information. However, dealing with unstructured text, complex data cleaning, pattern recognition beyond simple formulas, and generating insights often required manual effort or specialized tools outside the spreadsheet environment.

The integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) directly into spreadsheet functions is changing this paradigm. Now, users can leverage the power of large language models (LLMs) and other AI techniques to perform tasks that were previously difficult or impossible within the confines of rows and columns. This document explores the diverse applications of AI in spreadsheets, transforming them from static data containers into dynamic tools for insight generation, automation, and enhanced productivity.

Discover how AI-powered functions like AI_ASK, AI_EXTRACT, AI_FORMAT, and others are revolutionizing spreadsheet workflows by enabling natural language interaction, intelligent data extraction, and automated pattern recognition. These capabilities transform spreadsheets into powerful tools for insight generation, data processing, and workflow automation across diverse business domains.

Historical product note (August 2026): This article documents Boardflare's earlier standalone Functions Editor workflow. The current Python for Excel experience is centered on a reactive notebook with notebook-published BF.FUNCTION() functions. The retained Legacy Functions Editor remains available for older standalone-function workflows.

We're excited to announce a major update to our Python for Excel add-in that makes it easier than ever to create Excel LAMBDA functions from Python code. The new code editor provides a familiar VS Code-like experience right inside Excel, with features like syntax highlighting, function management, and integrated testing.

Historical product note (August 2026): The BOARDFLARE.RUNPY workflow shown later in this article belongs to an earlier version of Boardflare Python for Excel. For current work, start with the reactive notebook workflow and its workbook API.

Fuzzy matching is a technique used to find strings that are approximately equal, e.g. "Microsoft" and "Microsoft Inc". This is particularly useful in scenarios where exact matches are not possible due to typographical errors, variations in spelling, or other inconsistencies. In this post, we will explore how to perform fuzzy matching with Python in Excel using the NLTK library.

Our text_distance function for fuzzy matching is similar to that used in our Fuzzy Match app, but supports many more algorithms and can be readily modified to your specific needs. Actually, we've recently updated our Fuzzy Match tutorial with more details.

Historical product note (August 2026): The BOARDFLARE.RUNPY workflow shown later in this article belongs to an earlier version of Boardflare Python for Excel. For current work, start with the reactive notebook workflow and its workbook API.

Azure Sentiment Analysis is a powerful cloud-based service that goes beyond simple sentiment scoring by providing aspect-based sentiment analysis, allowing you to extract sentiment for specific aspects of text (like "food" and "service" in customer reviews). This post demonstrates how to integrate this service with Excel using Python to analyze text data and return results in a tabular format.

Historical product note (August 2026): This article documents the earlier BOARDFLARE.RUNPY function workflow. The current Python for Excel product is centered on a reactive notebook that can publish reusable worksheet functions through BF.FUNCTION().

Since we launched Boardflare's Python for Excel add-in over a month ago, we've heard from users that they would like to see more pre-made Python functions that they can use as-is or modify to suit their needs. As we've started buiding out a collection of Python functions, we realized that we could align our API with Microsoft's Python in Excel so that the same code could be used in both with minimal modification.

Microsoft announced a new Excel TRANSLATE function that allows users to translate text directly within their spreadsheets. This function is similar to the GOOGLETRANSLATE function in Google Sheets and provides a convenient way to work with multilingual data in Excel. In this article, we'll explore the syntax and usage of the TRANSLATE function in Excel.

It is currently available to Beta Channel users on Windows and Mac. It is unclear if this will offer unlimited free use once it reaches GA.

This post explores a GOOGLETRANSLATE function for Excel that brings Google Sheets' translation capabilities to Excel. Unlike the Google Sheets version, this implementation translates text locally on your computer using machine learning models, ensuring your data stays private without requiring any API calls or external services.

Learn how to create a web worker with Google Apps Script to enable background processing while keeping the UI responsive. This guide covers the inline worker pattern, which allows you to serve worker code directly from your Google Apps Script project and take advantage of module workers for ESM-only libraries.