Microsoft is preparing an Excel update that could remove one of the most tedious parts of working with open-ended survey responses. Through Copilot, the spreadsheet app is set to analyze text-filled columns, detect recurring themes, and automatically create related categories or tags.
The feature is aimed at a familiar problem for analysts and everyday users alike: turning hundreds of free-form answers into something that can be reviewed quickly. For teams that regularly handle customer feedback, survey data, or similar text-heavy inputs, the change could make the first pass of analysis far less painful.
Designed for the hardest kind of spreadsheet data
Unlike numbers, which can usually be sorted or calculated with formulas, open-ended responses often require manual reading one by one. That makes the work slow, especially when the answers vary widely in wording and meaning.
Microsoft is positioning Copilot to take over that early stage of the process. The system will read the text in a column, identify common topics, and help organize the material into categories that are easier to use for deeper analysis.
This is especially relevant for survey questions that invite written feedback, since those responses rarely follow a neat pattern. Once the main themes are mapped out, users can get a faster sense of what people are saying overall without scanning every line themselves.
The company’s description is brief, but the purpose is clear: to make text-heavy spreadsheets easier to interpret at the point where they are usually most difficult to manage.
More than a summary tool
Microsoft also says Copilot can speed up the summarizing of open-ended survey responses. In addition, users will be able to ask follow-up questions about the summarized results.
That matters because an initial summary is often only the start of the process. After the main themes are identified, analysts usually still need to dig into specific issues to understand which concerns appear most often or dominate the feedback.
In practice, the feature could help users move from a pile of raw text to a more structured set of insights much faster. Instead of spending time on manual sorting, the first stage of pattern recognition would be handled automatically inside Excel.
Microsoft has not yet detailed the final interface, the exact output format, or any limits on how much data the feature can process.
Planned for web, Windows, and macOS
The feature is still in development, and Microsoft is targeting a release in July 2026.
That timeline applies to Excel on the web, Windows, and macOS, signaling that the company wants the capability available across its main platforms rather than in only one version of the app.
Microsoft 365 Roadmap is intended to give businesses an early look at features that are moving toward launch. For the public, it often serves as an initial signal of what Microsoft is building next across its productivity lineup.
For now, the most notable part of this update is how directly it addresses a long-standing spreadsheet pain point. When open responses pile up in a single column and need to be understood quickly, Copilot’s ability to find themes and generate tags automatically could become one of Excel’s most practical additions yet.
