Shortcut was introduced as the “first superhuman Excel agent,” an AI-powered tool designed to streamline Microsoft Excel tasks through natural language instructions. It aims to assist both beginners and experienced users by automating spreadsheet work, such as calculations, modelling and chart creation, with significant speed and efficiency.

What Shortcut Offers

Shortcut allows users to input commands in plain language, such as “calculate total sales” or “create a pivot table,” and executes these tasks automatically. It reportedly completes complex Excel challenges up to 10 times faster than first year human analysts. In a blind evaluation, Shortcut outperformed first-year analysts from firms like McKinsey and Goldman Sachs 89.1% of the time (220:27), even when humans were given 10 times more time.

Key features include:

1. Speed: Completes tasks significantly faster than manual methods.
2. Review Changes: Shows “before and after” for each task, with clickable hard-coded cells for source citations or references, ensuring transparency.
3. Collaborative Sharing: Supports link-based sharing for seamless teamwork.
4. Analyst Feature (MAX Plan): Available to MAX plan users, this early preview feature allows tasks to run 10 times in parallel, potentially making it 100 times faster than a human analyst.
5. Ease of Use: Turns beginners into proficient users and enhances productivity for Excel experts.

How Shortcut Fits into Excel Workflows

Excel tasks can be divided into three categories:

Building Models from Scratch: Shortcut excels at creating new models efficiently.

Filling Out Files: The tool performs well in populating data into spreadsheets.

Editing Existing Files: This is more challenging, with human analysts currently outperforming Shortcut.

Limitations

While promising, Shortcut has areas for improvement:

1. Formatting: Can be inconsistent or “lazy,” requiring manual adjustments.
2. Existing Sheets: Struggles with editing pre-existing spreadsheets compared to creating new ones.
3. Large Files: May crash when handling very large files.
4. Macros: Does not yet support XLSM files with macros.

Current Use and Availability

Shortcut is already in use at companies like Ares, PwC, and SoFi, indicating its practical value. Users can try it at tryshortcut.ai, with the MAX plan offering early access to the “Analyst” feature, which is still in development and expected to improve before general release.

Shortcut offers a practical solution for automating Excel tasks, making it easier for beginners and faster for experts. While it shines in creating new models and filling out files, it faces challenges with existing spreadsheets and macros. As it continues to develop, Shortcut could become a valuable tool for professionals seeking to streamline data-heavy workflows. For more details or to try it, visit tryshortcut.ai.