Tag: Agent Mode

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Excel’s new “Agent Mode”

Agent Mode in Excel is a new “preview” feature Excel (online) for Microsoft Copilot Subscribers (Microsoft 365 Commercial, Personal, Family and Premium) that enables users to build and edit workbooks along side Copilot. 

When you’re updating budgets, creating financial models, or analysing data, Agent Mode uses Excel’s most powerful tools like tables, charts, PivotTables, and formulas to help you get the job done. As part of Microsoft’s Frontier program, Agent Mode gives you early access to cutting-edge AI capabilities.

What I love most is you don’t need Excel skills at all (other than knowing how to enable this feature) which you need to do before you can use it!

The new “Agent Mode” transforms Copilot from a one-shot assistant into a collaborative AI partner capable of orchestrating multi-step tasks across your office apps.

Microsoft.

Agent Mode updates your workbook using Excel’s built-in features, so your content stays editable and synced with the latest changes. It works with you and you can see it’s reasoning thinking and what it’s doing in real time!

Enabling the Agent Mode in Excel

Currently, to use Agent Mode in Excel, you need to be using Excel on the Web (and must have a paid Copilot License). To use the agent, you then need to head to “Add-ins”, search form, and then add the “Excel Labs” as shown below.

Adding the “preview” for Excel Labs in Excel on the Web.

The first time you do then, you will be presented with the following message. I’d suggest you have a read and accept. You can then open the agent to get started! You will see there are two options for use – Agent Mode and an Advanced Formula Environment.

Using Agent Mode in Excel

  1. Select the Excel Labs button
  2. In the Excel Labs task pane, choose Agent mode.
  3. Start working with the Agent to create your project.

    An example, Microsoft provide is to “Build a loan calculator that computes monthly payments based on user inputs for loan amount, annual interest rate, and term in years. Generate a schedule showing month, payment, principal, interest, and remaining balance. Present the results in a clear, formatted table“. You can see this in the prompt to the left (you can cut and paste this if you like!).

Watch Agent Mode in Excel in action.

I have built a video to showcase the example above which you can watch at your leisure. You’ll see how I work with it, tweak the calculator and add more functionality as I go… This to be mirrors how most people work. Build, check, reflect, enhance…

Excel Agent in action

How is Agent Mode Different to Copilot Chat in Excel?

Agent Mode is really designed to work for more complex, multi-step tasks such as reshaping data, merging sheets, or creating reports with multiple elements. For simpler, one-step tasks like adding a chart or PivotTable, talking about data, help with formulas etc can be quicker.

Because of the way Agent Mode works, it also takes a little longer to provide an initial response and refine it, particularly for more complex requests. But… It’s leaps ahead of what you can do in Copilot Chat alone..

Remember, for more conversational assistance or tasks that don’t make lots of modifications to your workbook, Copilot Chat is a much more suitable option.

Agent Mode in Excel: Availablility and Limitations

Availability: At time of writing (October 2025), Agent Mode in Excel is available on Excel for the web via the Excel Labs add-in in English. Support for other platforms, and additional languages will be included in the future.

It’s still AI.. You need to work with, but what I love is you can now build quite complex models, calculators or calculations with no code, no formatting experience, no charting skills…

It is still in preview, expect it to get perfected.

You can read more at the Official Microsoft site here: Agent Mode in Excel (Frontier)

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It’s Agent Mode the new way to do human-agent collaboration?

Microsoft Copilot development just doesn’t sleep… This time they have just announced “agent mode” which they claim could be game changer in the way we (humans) work with AI agents (Copilot). Called “Agent Mode” this latest update marks is not just about new features, but a significant shift in how we interact with Office apps through Copilot.

Agent Mode in Excel

What is Agent mode?

Agent Mode is Microsoft’s answer to the growing demand for intelligent, iterative workflows without needing to craft lengthy prompts. Agent Mode brings agentic reasoning into Excel and Word, (others will follow), allowing users to work along side Copilot through multi-step tasks ranging from data analysis to document creation – with a level of depth and refinement that feels like working alongside an expert.

“In the same way vibe coding has transformed software development, the latest reasoning models in Copilot unlock agentic productivity for Office artefacts.”

Sumit Chauhan |CVP |Microsoft Product Group

These are both application and context aware. As an example:

  • In Excel, Agent Mode “speaks spreadsheet” language. Whether you need to build financial models, loan calculators, resource calculators or budgets, Agent Mode in Excel means Copilot now understands the nuances of formulas, formatting, and validation. Rather than just generating outputs, it can evaluate your work, suggest fixes, and works with you until you get the result you need.
  • In Word, Agent Mode will be able to transform writing into a dialogue. Users can prompt, Copilot drafts, user can then asks clarifying questions, and Copilot will refines the content with native styling and formatting. Microsoft say this is vibe writing in action — fast, fluid, and focused.

Chat first creation…

Then, there is the new “Office Agent”, which will live inside Copilot chat. This is designed for when discussions start in a Copilot Chat, rather from within document or spreadsheet. In this context, the Office Agent will have the ability to create “proper” documents directly from your chat, using deep reasoning and live previews to guide the process and creation. These will be powered by Anthropic models and not OpenAI.

Microsoft have given (in their official article) some examples we can use.

In Excel

Financial Analysis Prompt: “Create a financial monthly close report for a bike shop business, including a breakdown of product lines across VTB, VTF, sequential, and year-over-year growth. Use standard financial formatting and best practices.”


Loan Calculator Prompt: “Build a loan calculator that computes monthly payments based on user inputs for loan amount, annual interest rate, and term in years. Generate a schedule showing month, payment, principal, interest, and remaining balance. Present the results in a clear, formatted table.”

Monthly Report Update Prompt: “Help me update this monthly report for September. Update the data table with the latest numbers from the /Sept Data Pull email. Summarise the key highlights including insights compared to last month’s /August monthly report.doc.”

In Word


Project Update Prompt: “Update the executive summary for clarity, bold all key findings, and insert a bulleted list of next steps based on the /Project update meeting. Make sure to add a conclusion“.


Document Style Prompt: “Can you clean up this document? Title case for section headers, branding updates per the ‘/Latest brand guidelines’ email, and italicize all external partner mentions. Feel free to ask if you need help identifying partners or guidelines.”

In Powerpoint (coming later)

Interestingly, Microsoft say that Copilot can now (finally) create good presentations in PowerPoint!

“PowerPoint is one of the most used tools for creating presentations, but over the last two years, AI (Copilot) has often fallen short when creating slides. Office Agent changes that. Office Agent creates tasteful, well-structured PowerPoint decks and well-researched Word documents. ”

Microsoft say that now… When you work with Copilot to create presentations you will get a totally transformed experience. It will

  • Clarify your intent
  • Conduct deep research
  • Produce high-quality content.

How to use “Agent Mode”

First thing first….. Not everyone can yet and it’s not available day one… OK now read on…

Currently, Agent Mode is available for organisations (and users) enrolled in the Frontier program for Microsoft 365 Copilot who have a Microsoft 365 Copilot license or that have Microsoft 365 Personal or Family with a Copilot Pro license.

Agent Mode works in Excel on the web but will be coming soon to desktop. Word is also coming soon.

For Excel, you will also need to install the Excel Labs add-in and choose “Agent Mode”.

Oddly, from what I have read, the Office Agent is only available for Copilot Pro subscribers on Microsoft 365 Personal or Family or Premium and not (yet) Microsoft 365 Commercial. It’s also limited to USA currently! 🙁

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