What's New in Excel (May 2025)

Welcome to the May 2025 update. This month, we are excited to highlight six new features that will help enhance your productivity and data management capabilities.

 

Excel for Windows:
- Clean Data with Copilot in Excel

Excel for Windows, Mac and web:
- Think Deeper in Copilot in Excel with Python
- Text analysis with Copilot in Excel

Excel for Windows and web:
- Hear Copilot responses out loud

Excel for Mac:
- Forms integration for Mac

Excel for web:
- Show changes - extended lineage #FIA

Excel for Windows

Clean Data with Copilot in Excel

Excel's AI-based Clean Data feature enables the cleaning of data with only the touch of a button. It does so with three available suggestion types: inconsistent text issues, inconsistent number format issues and extra spaces.

Simply select the Clean Data option in the Data tab of the ribbon or interact with the pop-up banner to get started.

 This feature is already available to web users and is currently rolling out to Windows CC (Current Channel) users. Read more here >

Picture showing an inconsistent text suggestion card example of mixed cases to the word “Excel”, including "Excel", "EXCEL", and "Excel."

Excel for Windows, Mac, and web

Think deeper in Copilot in Excel with Python

Think deeper is rolling out for Copilot in Excel with Python, deepening analysis capabilities in your spreadsheets. It leverages reasoning models to provide more comprehensive and structured analyses, enabling you to tackle complex data questions with ease. By activating think deeper, Copilot generates a more structured and detailed plan for your analysis, executes Python code within a dedicated worksheet, and offers step-by-step explanations—all without requiring you to write any code. Read more here >

Picture showing the toggle to use think deeper in Copilot in Excel with Python

Text Analysis with Copilot in Excel
For users who don’t have time to analyze text data, Copilot can now quickly identify sentiments in text and summarize themes, providing sources for efficient validation. Copilot can then create charts or PivotTables to help users uncover deeper insights into key issues or trends from their text analysis. Additionally, Copilot now supports analyzing tens of thousands of rows, so users can save time and uncover deeper insights across larger text datasets. Read more here >

Copilot response with sentiment analysis, creating a Pivot chart and inserting into a new sheet.

Excel for Windows and web

Hear Copilot responses out loud
When chatting with Copilot, simply select the speaker icon from the response to hear the text read aloud. This feature enhances accessibility and convenience, allowing users to listen to Copilot's responses hands-free while multitasking or on the go.

Excel for Mac

Forms integration for Mac
Users can now sync responses on Mac. In addition, users can now create a new Microsoft Form directly within an Excel workbook, linking the form to the workbook seamlessly. This was previously available for Web and Windows users. Read more here >

Picture showing how to create a new form on Mac.

Excel for web

Show Changes - extended lineage #FIA
Show Changes in Excel now lets you view up to 1 year of changes in Excel for the web, a significant expansion from the previous 60-day limit. This update provides a deeper history of your workbook’s evolution, making it easier to track and understand past changes over time.

Picture showing the show changes pane.

 

 

Many of these features are the result of your feedback. THANK YOU! Your continued Feedback in Action (#FIA) helps improve Excel for everyone. Please let us know how you like a particular feature and what we can improve upon—"Give a compliment" or "Make a suggestion"..  You can also submit new ideas or vote for other ideas via Microsoft Feedback.

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Special thanks to our Excel MVPs David Benaim, Bill Jelen, Alan Murray, and John Michaloudis for their contribution to this month's What's New in Excel article. David publishes weekly YouTube videos and regular LinkedIn posts about the latest innovations in Excel and more. Bill is the founder and host of MrExcel.com and the author of several books about Excel. Alan is an Excel trainer, author and speaker, best known for his blog computergaga.com and YouTube channel with the same name. John is the Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer at MyExcelOnline.com where he passionately teaches thousands of professionals how to use Excel to stand out from the crowd.