Microsoft Excel Natural-Language Questions + Explanations Template

What if your Microsoft Excel workbook could understand plain-English questions and instantly explain what your data means—without users needing to remember which sheet to open, which column to filter, or how to build a PivotTable? WSI’s Excel Natural-Language Questions + Explanations Template demonstrates exactly that. This downloadable Excel template provides a clear, practical example of how you can add an “Ask the Spreadsheet” experience to Excel so users can type questions like “What changed this month vs last month?”, “Which customers drove the revenue drop?”, or “Explain why margin is lower in the West region.”—and get a business-friendly answer immediately.

If you’ve seen our Microsoft Access AI templates, this is the Excel equivalent: very basic by design, but it clearly shows the power of what can be implemented in real Excel workbooks used for reporting, finance, operations, and analytics. The template is built around a proven pattern: AI helps interpret the user’s intent (what they want to know), while Excel performs the controlled, reliable work (filtering tables, aggregating totals, comparing time periods, and generating structured summaries). If you want WSI to tailor this approach to your real data, reporting cadence, and business rules, Contact Us.

What This Excel Template Does

This template workbook showcases how Excel can deliver a modern AI-assisted analysis experience while still keeping results grounded in the spreadsheet logic your team already trusts. Users enter a question in plain language, and the system returns a human-friendly explanation—often with clear “what changed” insights and practical next steps for Excel users.

• Natural-language questions: Users ask questions in plain English instead of manually building filters, formulas, or PivotTables.
• Narrative explanations: The template generates concise written summaries that explain what the data shows in business terms.
• Excel-friendly guidance: When helpful, the answer includes suggested actions like “filter by Region,” “group by month,” or “create a PivotTable using these fields.”
• Works with real-world messy data: Demonstrates how AI can still provide useful explanations even when labels, notes, or categories are inconsistent.
• A safe, scalable approach: The template is designed as a pattern you can expand—without turning your workbook into an unmaintainable black box.

Examples of Questions Users Can Ask

The workbook is intentionally simple, but it demonstrates a powerful concept: Excel becomes easier to use because people can ask questions the way they naturally think. Sample questions include:

• Month-over-month changes: “What changed this month vs last month?”
• Drivers of variance: “What caused revenue to drop?” “Which customers or products drove the change?”
• Margin and profitability: “Why is margin lower in the West?” “Which products have the worst margin?”
• Outliers and anomalies: “Are there unusual spikes or suspicious rows I should review?”
• Excel understanding: “Explain the formula in the selected cell in plain English.”

Why Natural-Language Q&A Matters in Excel

Excel is the tool nearly everyone has—but many business workbooks become “expert-only” over time. Users forget which tabs matter, how calculations work, or which filters produce the correct view. Natural-language Q&A reduces that friction dramatically by letting people interact with Excel using plain language and getting consistent, repeatable explanations.

• Lower training burden: New staff can become productive faster because they can ask the workbook instead of hunting for the “right” report tab.
• Faster answers: Less time spent building filters and pivots means faster decisions and fewer reporting bottlenecks.
• More consistent interpretation: AI-guided explanations reduce misunderstandings that happen when different people read the same spreadsheet differently.
• Better adoption: When analysis feels easier, teams rely on Excel processes more—and data quality often improves as a result.

How It Works

The template uses a production-friendly strategy that keeps the “wow factor” of AI while remaining dependable inside Excel. Instead of asking AI to do everything (and risking inconsistent results), we combine controlled Excel processing with AI interpretation and explanation.

• Step 1: The user types a question in plain English on a simple “Start Here” sheet.
• Step 2: The workbook gathers safe context—such as column names, data types, row counts, and optionally pre-calculated summaries (like month totals).
• Step 3: AI generates a business-friendly explanation using the provided context (and asks a clarifying question if needed).
• Step 4: Excel displays the answer immediately and can optionally guide the user toward the exact filters/pivots that match the question.

Important note on data privacy: WSI designs these templates to minimize what is shared. In many cases, Excel can compute totals and time comparisons locally, and the AI receives only the minimum context needed to generate the explanation. This is a configurable approach: some organizations choose to send limited samples; others prefer sending only aggregated summaries. If you want a version aligned to your internal security requirements, Contact Us and we’ll recommend the best configuration for your environment.

What You Can Implement in Your Own Excel Workbooks

This template is a starting point. In real projects, WSI extends the same pattern into your production spreadsheets and reporting workflows—so the AI capability is aligned to your schema, your definitions, and your decision-making process.

• More question types: Expand beyond basic summaries into finance variance analysis, operational KPIs, inventory exceptions, sales pipeline commentary, and compliance reporting.
• Role-aware outputs: Ensure the narrative and recommended actions match the user’s job function (executive vs analyst vs ops).
• Cross-sheet and cross-file intelligence: Provide explanations across multiple tables/sheets and consistently interpret “the latest month,” “quarter-to-date,” or “YTD.”
• Power Query integration: Automate data cleanup and refresh, then generate AI commentary immediately after refresh.
• Reusable “AI commentary blocks”: Turn common questions into one-click buttons that generate standardized notes for monthly reporting packs.
• Governance and audit logging: Optional logging of prompts/responses to support troubleshooting, review, and compliance needs.

Can This Be Distributed as a Locked Download?

Yes—WSI can deliver Excel templates in a way that strongly discourages editing and protects the implementation. While Excel does not have a perfect equivalent to an Access ACCDE, we can distribute the template as a locked .XLTM workbook (or an .XLAM add-in) with protected sheets, hidden setup areas, and a locked VBA project. For organizations that require stronger protection, we can also implement a server-based approach where the “AI logic” resides outside the workbook and the Excel template simply calls your approved endpoint.

Why WSI

AI features are fun, but making them reliable inside real business spreadsheets is where most “demo solutions” fail. WSI understands Excel-based workflows and how organizations actually use them—multiple versions, messy inputs, last-minute reporting, and high reliance on consistent results. We implement AI in a way that is useful, safe, maintainable, and aligned with how your team already works.

If you want this Natural-Language Questions + Explanations capability in your Excel workbooks—whether for finance reporting, operational KPIs, sales analysis, or executive summaries—Contact Us and tell us what you track today, what questions users ask repeatedly, and where they get stuck. We’ll help you define a practical first version and a roadmap for expanding Excel AI capabilities over time.

If you're considering integrating this capability into a .NET application, Power Platform solution, or a broader API-driven analytics workflow, WSI stands ready to assist. Connect with us for tailored solutions that combine Microsoft Excel expertise with professional AI integration.

A ChatGPT open AI API key is required to run the code - which can be attained at: ChatGPT