Copilot can now run Python inside your Excel workbook

Edit with Copilot can write and run Python inside Excel on desktop and in the browser, putting the results straight back into the sheet.

Microsoft has added Python to Edit with Copilot in Excel. It works on Windows, on Mac and in the browser. You describe what you want, Copilot writes and runs the code, and the results go directly into the workbook.

Microsoft gives examples like summarising trends, cleaning up messy data, or building a visualisation with Python. That covers work which was awkward or impossible with formulas alone, such as a proper statistical check or a chart Excel could not draw on its own. Existing security and execution controls still apply, so this sits inside whatever rules your organisation already has rather than around them.

The practical shift for a midsize business is who can do this work. Cleaning a messy export, reconciling two lists, or running a quick statistical check used to mean either a very patient person with formulas or someone who could write code. Now it means describing the job in the sheet where the data already lives. If you have a monthly report that someone rebuilds by hand, that is the first thing to point it at.

The caution is the obvious one with generated code: it runs, and it looks confident, and that is not the same as correct. Check the output against a number you already know before you trust a new analysis, especially when the source data is messy. Keep the original data on its own tab so you can always see what the code started from. And be careful pointing it at anything containing client or personal information until you know how your organisation's controls apply.

Most businesses already have the data. This lowers the cost of asking it a harder question.