#116 - Copilot in Excel is the Trojan Horse of AI Adoption

🎙️ Episode Description

For the last few weeks, Malcolm has been doing the same trick in workshops — and it keeps producing the exact same reaction: silence.

He walks into a room full of executives, opens a real Excel file, switches Copilot into Agent Mode, gives it one big instruction — build charts, surface insights, create a 90-day plan, flag business errors, add a Read Me tab — and then calmly walks off to make a coffee while Excel starts building the analysis live in front of everyone.

That is the whole point of this episode: Copilot in Excel has quietly become one of the most powerful AI adoption tools inside companies.

Not because it feels futuristic. Not because it is the most hyped AI product on the market. But because Excel is already where people live. Finance lives there. Sales lives there. Operations, controlling, production, R&D — everybody uses Excel. There is no new app to learn, no extra login, no dramatic workflow shift. The AI appears exactly where people already work.

Malcolm argues that this is why Excel may be the real Trojan horse of AI adoption.

The episode also explains why most users still underuse Copilot in Excel. They ask for one formula, one chart, one tiny adjustment. But the real leap happens when you go big: ask for multiple tabs, multiple charts, error analysis, color-coding, a 90-day plan, formatting improvements, broken links, wrong references, and a full explanation of what was done. That is where Agent Mode stops being a gimmick and starts becoming a weapon.

Malcolm also gives an honest view on the competition. Claude for Excel and ChatGPT for Excel can be very strong in certain cases, and sometimes even outperform Copilot in specific error-finding tasks. But in real companies, Copilot often has one decisive advantage: it is already inside the Microsoft environment people are allowed to use. That makes it far easier to adopt at scale.

This is not an abstract episode about “the future of work.” It is a field report from real workshops, real managers, real spreadsheets, and real moments where people suddenly realize that the AI adoption tool they were waiting for may already be sitting in the ribbon of a product they have used for 20 years.

🎙️ ABOUT THE HOST

Malcolm Werchota leads AI adoption programs for companies across Europe. After more than 15 years in international corporates and leadership roles, his focus today is practical AI implementation without the usual nonsense.

He works with companies from manufacturing to pharma, from family-owned businesses to large global enterprises — always with a strong bias toward real-world adoption and business value.

🚀 RESOURCES FOR LEADERS

📚 Chief AI Academy — AI for Decision-Makers

https://www.werchota.ai/chief-ai-academy

👥 AI Leadership Community

https://chief.werchota.ai/getting-started

📬 CONTACT

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/malcolmwerchota

E-Mail: [email protected]

🔎 TAGS

#AI #AICookbook #Copilot #Excel #MicrosoftCopilot #AgentMode #AIAdoption #BusinessAI #EnterpriseAI #CFO #Controlling #ExcelAutomation #Leadership #FutureOfWork