Is AI About to Kill Excel?
Or will Excel users become more powerful than ever? Here’s what the AI wave means for your team—and the strategic advantage you’re about to miss.
SUMMARY: AI is reshaping Excel work by eliminating manual, repetitive tasks and demanding structured, automated workflows. Entry-level roles face extinction, but professionals at all levels can adapt by mastering two skills: Excel Data Plumbing and AI Crafting. Together, they enable ultra-productivity, strategic insight, and career resilience in a fast-evolving landscape.
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
—Sir Isaac Newton
You now can stand or rest on the shoulders of AI giants. Or you can be trampled by them. It’s your choice.
Today, AI gives Excel users access to the knowledge and judgment of millions of giants. That power only helps if users move from scutwork to brainwork. But sadly, most Excel users will keep cranking out scutwork—until the AI giants come for their jobs.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s happening now.
Anthropic’s CEO recently warned that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next 1–5 years. JPMorgan is automating 10% of its consumer-business workforce. And Fast Company says it bluntly:
AI isn’t just coming for your job—it’s coming for your company.
Not just Excel work. Not just entry-level roles. Entire business models are at risk—especially those still running on brittle spreadsheets and manual workflows.
If you’re spending your time copy-pasting data, adjusting formulas, or debugging spreadsheets—AI can do that faster, cheaper, and without needing a benefits package.
So the question isn’t “Is AI going to change Excel work?”
It already has.
The real question is: Will it trample you—or empower you?
Excel Scutwork Is Being Automated Out of Existence
Every period, millions of Excel users open last month’s workbook, paste in data, tweak formulas, scan for errors, send it off—and do it all again, week after week, month after month.
That’s not a strategy. That’s scutwork.
And it’s precisely the kind of work GenAI tools are designed to replace.
Copilot writes formulas. ChatGPT cleans data, explains code, and generates summaries. These tools don’t sleep, don’t forget steps, and don’t break under pressure. They’re not “on the way”—they’re already good enough to replace routine Excel work today.
That’s why entry-level jobs—and low-structure Excel roles—are vanishing first.
The Excel Data Plumbing Strategy isn’t just a way to survive AI—it’s a strategic advantage. It makes Excel users faster, sharper, and more valuable. But if you don’t adopt it soon, you won’t just fall behind—you’ll miss the career leap others are already making.
But not all Excel users face the same future.
The Escape Route: AI + the Excel Data Plumbing Strategy
There’s a new kind of Excel professional emerging—one that isn’t just surviving, but thriving. They’re called Excel Data Plumbers.
Instead of grinding through scutwork, they use Excel’s Power Query feature to design Flowbooks. These are structured Excel workbooks that automate data import, cleanup, transformation, and delivery to reports, dashboards, and forecasts—called Reflows.
With one click, a Flowbook flows fresh data to every reflow.
No manual cleanup. No patching. No copy-paste.
And that means Data Plumbers have time—time to analyze, think, explain, and use AI as a creative assistant.
They ask ChatGPT to:
- Explain complex formulas
- Draft Power Query steps
- Suggest new KPIs
- Turn numbers into narratives
In short, they use AI to enhance their brainwork, not automate their scutwork.
The AI giant doesn’t trample Data Plumbers. It amplifies them.
Brainwork Is the New Job Security
If you don’t have structure in your work, AI can’t help you—it can only replace you.
That’s the difference between two kinds of Excel users emerging right now: AI Laggers and AI Crafters.
AI Laggers are people who’ve done little or nothing with AI. They act like it’s a passing trend they can ignore—and hope it will go away.
AI Crafters, by contrast, are people who’ve learned AI well enough to use it as a partner and tutor. They treat AI as a skill they’ve developed—and will keep improving.
But if you do have structure, AI becomes your power tool.
That’s why the combination of GenAI and the Excel Data Plumbing Strategy is so powerful:
- The Strategy gives you structure.
- AI gives you leverage.
- You deliver results.
The outcome? More speed. Better insights. Stronger roles. And career durability in an age where entry-level is disappearing.
From Risk to Reward: What This Looks Like in Practice
Here’s what a future-ready Excel user looks like today:
- You show up to work with fresh, accurate dashboards—generated overnight, automatically.
- You’ve got time to think, write, and advise your manager on what the data means.
- You’re the one using AI—not being replaced by it.
That’s not a fantasy. That’s what Flowbooks enable. And that’s what separates Excel Data Plumbers from Excel Data Grinders.
Excel Data Grinders are Excel users stuck in legacy habits—copy-pasting data, tweaking broken workbooks, and surviving by repetition. Their value drops as AI rises, because scutwork is the first thing machines can do better.
So ask yourself:
Are you grinding through Excel scutwork, hoping to stay ahead of the AI curve?
Or are you building Flowbooks, delivering insight, and letting AI make you faster, sharper, and more valuable?
The AI giant is growing stronger every day. It will trample the unstructured. But it will elevate the structured, the strategic, and the ultra-productive.
Which one will you be?
More Information About the EDP Strategy
If this is your first encounter with AI or the EDP Strategy, you may still be wrapping your head around how different it is from the way Excel is typically used.
Here are some related articles to get you started:
