How to Create Excel Formulas with Microsoft Copilot

João Barros 11 de July de 2026 4 min read

Writing formulas by hand isn't always easy, especially when the logic involves several conditions. Microsoft Copilot in Excel changes that: you describe the calculation in words and it suggests a ready-to-use formula. You'll learn how to create Excel formulas with Microsoft Copilot, step by step, without memorizing syntax or function names.

Prerequisites

A Microsoft 365 subscription with an active Microsoft Copilot license.
Excel for the web or the updated desktop app.
The file saved to OneDrive or SharePoint, with AutoSave turned on.
Your data organized in a table, with clear headers in the first row.

Step 1: Prepare your data as a table

Copilot in Excel works much better when your data sits in a formal table. Select the range and, on the Home tab, choose Format as Table (or press Ctrl+T). Make sure the "My table has headers" box is checked. In this example, imagine a sales table with the columns Sales and Cost, from which we want to calculate the profit margin.

Step 2: Save to the cloud and turn on AutoSave

Copilot needs a file saved in the cloud to work. Go to File > Save As and pick a folder in OneDrive or SharePoint. Then, in the top-left corner of the window, turn on AutoSave. If you skip this step, it's normal for the Copilot button to look greyed out and unavailable.

Step 3: Open the Copilot pane

On the Home tab, click the Copilot button, usually on the right side of the ribbon. A pane opens on the right, where you can chat with Copilot and make natural-language requests about your table. The first time, Excel may ask you to confirm which table you want to work on.

Step 4: Ask for the formula in natural language

This is the core step of how to create Excel formulas with Copilot: instead of writing the syntax, you describe the goal. In the Copilot pane, type a request such as:

Add a column called Margin that calculates (Sales - Cost) divided by Sales, formatted as a percentage.

Copilot reads the request, identifies the right columns, and proposes a formula column. The suggestion will look similar to this:

=([@Sales]-[@Cost])/[@Sales]

Notice that Copilot uses structured references — the column name in square brackets with the @ symbol — instead of A2 or B2. This makes the formula far more readable and easier to maintain.

Step 5: Review and insert the column

Never accept a formula blindly. Read the explanation Copilot shows under the suggestion and check that the logic matches what you wanted. If it's correct, click Insert column. Excel creates the new column and fills every row at once. If the result isn't what you expected, that's fine: you can adjust the request instead of fixing cell by cell.

Step 6: Refine with follow-up requests

Copilot is iterative, so you can fine-tune the result with additional requests, such as:

"Round the margin to one decimal place."
"Create a column that shows High when the margin is above 30% and Low otherwise."

For the second case, Copilot typically returns something like:

=IF([@Margin]>0.3,"High","Low")

That way you can combine calculations and classifications without leaving the conversation with Copilot.

Verify the result

Click a cell in the new column and look at the formula bar: you should see exactly the suggested expression. Check two or three values by hand, for example with a calculator, to be sure the calculation is right. If you see the #DIV/0! error, it means some rows have Sales equal to zero — a good reminder that Copilot speeds up the work, but the final validation is still yours.

Conclusion

In just a few minutes, you turned a plain English sentence into a working Excel formula, ready to reuse in other sheets. The natural next step is to ask Copilot for PivotTables, charts, or conditional highlights to explore your data even faster. What will be the next calculation you let Copilot write for you?