Although Microsoftsometimes removes features from Excel,it often offers better alternativesandadds completely new capabilities as well. Now, it has shared all the enhancements it has made to its popular spreadsheet software during the month of August 2026.
This time around, all announced features are shared across Windows, Mac, and the web. And like it or not, all capabilities are related to Copilot this month. First off, we have the availability of the change history skill, which enables users to understand via a Copilot-generated summary how the workbook has evolved over time. It also empowers customers to undo specific edits or revert to a previous state easily. Microsoft hastaggedthis feature as "Feedback In Action" (#FIA), indicating that this capability was requested by customers. In the same vein, another #FIA addition is the ability to view recent chat history, sorted by recency, through the menu icon in the upper left corner of the Copilot in the Excel pane.
Microsoft has also rolled out the @chart-design Chart and PivotTable skills to format complex data into easily understandable visuals to derive useful insights.
Finally, Excel Insiders can leverage the @python-in-excel skill to create editable and refreshable Python formulas to analyze granular data in detail.
That's all there is to it this month. If you're an active Copilot customer with the right license, this is undoubtedly an excellent month. However, if you're averse to AI solutions like Copilot, these updates aren't that interesting for you. That said, this could be an opportunity to try out the AI assistant and see if it can improve your productivity and automate your workflows. You'll have to shell out some money for a subscription,and it's not exactly cheap, unfortunately.