How to Use Agent Mode in Excel with Copilot

Agent Mode in Microsoft Excel Copilot lets you describe what you want as an outcome and have the AI execute it autonomously across your spreadsheet. You do not write formulas, you do not script anything. You type something like "Build a monthly budget tracker that totals expenses by category and highlights overruns in red," and Copilot plans the steps, writes the formulas, applies formatting, and validates the result. As of March 2026, this is generally available for all qualifying Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

What Agent Mode Is (and What It Is Not)

Standard Copilot Chat in Excel answers questions and suggests formulas. You apply them yourself. Agent Mode is different: it takes autonomous action directly inside your workbook. Copilot plans the task, executes steps in sequence, checks its own output, and iterates if something is wrong.

The distinction matters because most Excel Copilot tutorials still describe the earlier experience. The "Think Deeper" feature and "App Skills" (which ran Python analysis inside the grid) were deprecated in February 2026. If you are following a guide that mentions those, it is out of date. Agent Mode is the current path for multi-step automated work in Excel.

According to Microsoft's January 2026 Copilot release notes, more than 70% of commercial Copilot users who tried Agent Mode in preview reported completing tasks they previously delegated to colleagues or IT.

Requirements Before You Start

Three things need to be in place.

License. Agent Mode requires one of the following: Microsoft 365 Personal, Microsoft 365 Family, Microsoft 365 Premium, or a commercial Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription. It is not available on older perpetual Office licenses (Office 2019, 2021) or on Microsoft 365 Basic. If you see the Copilot button but no editing or agent options, your license tier is likely the issue.

Excel version. You need the March 2026 or later update channel release on Windows or Mac, or Excel for the web. To check on Windows: File > Account > About Excel. If you are on a semi-annual update channel, you may not have received the March 2026 release yet. Switching to the Current Channel in your Microsoft 365 admin settings will resolve this.

File location. The workbook must be saved to OneDrive or SharePoint. Agent Mode uses a cloud processing pipeline that cannot run on locally saved files. If your file is saved to your desktop or a network drive, save a copy to OneDrive first. The Save to OneDrive option is in File > Save a Copy.

Note: Agent Mode is not yet available to users in the EU or UK as of April 2026 due to data residency requirements.

How to Open Agent Mode

1. Open your workbook in Excel (desktop or web) and confirm it is saved to OneDrive or SharePoint. The location shows in the title bar.
2. Select Home in the ribbon, then click the Copilot button on the right side.
3. The Copilot pane opens on the right. By default in the March 2026 build, editing is turned on automatically.
4. Confirm the Editing toggle is enabled in the Copilot pane. With editing off, Copilot only reads and answers questions.
5. Type your task as an outcome. For example: "Summarize total sales by region for Q1 in a new sheet, format as a table, and add conditional formatting to highlight the top three regions."

Copilot will show a plan before executing. Review it and confirm. You can edit the plan steps before Copilot begins.

Your First Agent Mode Task: A Real Walkthrough

Start with a task that would take 15 minutes manually. A good first prompt for a sales or operations dataset:

"Create a summary table on a new sheet showing total revenue and unit count by product category. Sort descending by revenue. Add a column showing each category's share of total revenue. Format the share column as percentages."

Copilot will respond with a step-by-step plan. It typically shows three to five steps: reading the source data range, identifying categories, writing SUMIF or PIVOT logic, creating the new sheet, and applying formatting. You approve the plan and watch it execute.

If a step fails, Copilot identifies the error, adjusts its approach, and retries. You do not intervene. The final result is a formatted table on a new sheet, built without you touching a cell.

For more complex requests, you can include web context. Agent Mode in Excel includes web-grounded search, so you can ask things like "Add a column showing the current exchange rate for each currency in column D, sourced from today's rates." Copilot retrieves the data and populates the column.

The Analyst Agent: A Different Tool

Microsoft 365 Copilot also includes a separate capability called Analyst, accessible from the Copilot sidebar under Agents. Analyst is for exploratory reasoning across data files, not for editing your workbook. You attach a file (Excel, CSV, PDF), describe what you want to understand, and Analyst generates a written analysis with charts.

Use Agent Mode when you want to build something inside your workbook: formulas, tables, summaries, formatting. Use Analyst when you want to upload a file and get a written report or visual breakdown without modifying the original.

Model Options

As of March 2026, Agent Mode supports two model options. Under the Copilot pane settings you can switch between the OpenAI-powered experience and Claude models from Anthropic. The Claude option uses Claude Opus 4.5 on Microsoft 365 Copilot and Premium licenses. For most spreadsheet tasks the difference is marginal, but users working with large schemas or complex multi-step instructions report Claude performing more reliably on tasks requiring careful step sequencing.

What Agent Mode Cannot Do Yet

Agent Mode does not connect to external databases or business systems directly from Excel. It works with data already in your workbook or data it can retrieve via web search. For analysis on data sitting in a database, a data warehouse, or a live business system, you still need to export to Excel first.

For teams who work primarily with uploaded files and want similar outcome-based analysis without the OneDrive and license requirements, VSLZ handles data analysis from a file upload with a single plain-English prompt and no workbook configuration needed.

What to Do Next

Open a workbook you use regularly and try a single Agent Mode task: something you would normally build by hand in 10 to 20 minutes. The clearest way to understand what Agent Mode can do is to run it on real data with a real outcome in mind. Start there before building more complex multi-step workflows.