# AI for Excel Course (Self-Paced)

Canonical URL: <https://www.graduateschool.edu/courses/ai-for-excel-course-self-paced>

## Overview

This course teaches experienced Excel users how to leverage artificial intelligence to dramatically reduce time spent on repetitive, tedious spreadsheet tasks. Participants will learn to use AI tools—including ChatGPT, Claude, and Microsoft Copilot—as intelligent assistants for formula creation, data cleaning, analysis, and automation.

Through hands-on demonstrations and practical exercises, you'll discover how to prompt AI effectively to generate complex formulas you'd otherwise spend hours researching, clean messy datasets in minutes instead of days, create VBA macros without writing code from scratch, and transform raw data into actionable insights faster than ever before.

Whether you're a financial analyst wrestling with monthly reports, an HR professional managing employee data, or a project manager tracking complex schedules, this course will show you how AI can become your most powerful Excel productivity partner.

## What you'll learn

- Craft effective AI prompts to generate accurate Excel formulas, including complex nested functions you'd otherwise spend hours researching or debugging
- Use AI to automate tedious data cleaning tasks such as standardizing formats, splitting/combining text, removing duplicates, and correcting inconsistencies
- Leverage AI assistants to explain existing formulas, troubleshoot errors, and suggest optimizations for slow-performing spreadsheets
- Apply AI to accelerate data analysis, including generating insights, creating visualizations, and producing VBA macros for repetitive workflows

## Prerequisites

Attendees must have beginner Excel skills equivalent to our [Excel Fundamentals course](/courses/basic-excel-classes), including basic functions and formulas, printing, formatting, basic charts, and tables.

## Curriculum

#### Module 1: AI Fundamentals for Excel Users

- Understand what AI can (and cannot) do for your Excel work
- Overview of AI tools: ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft Copilot, and others
- How AI "thinks" about spreadsheets—and why that matters for getting good results
- Setting realistic expectations: AI as assistant, not replacement
- Security and data privacy considerations when using AI with sensitive data

#### Module 2: Mastering AI Prompts for Formula Generation

- The anatomy of an effective Excel prompt: context, examples, and constraints
- Generating simple to complex formulas on demand (VLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, nested IFs, array formulas)
- Prompt techniques for dynamic formulas that adapt to your data
- Troubleshooting formulas with AI: explaining errors and suggesting fixes
- Hands-on practice: Building a prompt library for your most common formula needs

#### Module 3: Automating Data Cleaning with AI

- Identifying data cleaning tasks AI handles best
- Prompting AI to standardize inconsistent data (dates, names, addresses, phone numbers)
- Using AI to generate formulas for splitting and combining text
- Detecting and handling duplicates, outliers, and missing values
- Hands-on practice: Cleaning a messy real-world dataset using AI-generated solutions

#### Module 4: AI-Assisted Data Analysis and Insights

- Asking AI the right questions about your data
- Generating summary statistics and identifying trends with AI guidance
- Using AI to suggest appropriate chart types and visualization approaches
- Creating data narratives: Having AI help explain what the numbers mean
- Hands-on practice: Analyzing a dataset and generating insights with AI assistance

#### Module 5: VBA and Macro Generation with AI

- When automation makes sense: Identifying repetitive workflows to streamline
- Prompting AI to write VBA macros for common tasks (formatting, reporting, data manipulation)
- Understanding and modifying AI-generated code (even if you're not a programmer)
- Testing, debugging, and refining macros with AI support
- Hands-on practice: Creating a macro to automate a repetitive reporting task

#### Module 6: Building Your AI-Enhanced Excel Workflow

- Integrating AI into your daily Excel routine without disrupting productivity
- Creating a personal prompt library for recurring tasks
- When to use AI vs. when to do it yourself: A practical decision framework
- Keeping up with rapidly evolving AI capabilities
- Developing an action plan for continued AI skill-building

## Instructors

### Steve Pesklo — Instructor

Steve is an energetic trainer who focuses on applying technical concepts to everyday work practices. He is the founder and president of SoftLake Solutions, a company that specializes in providing data and AI applications to identify fraud for Internal Audit, Criminal Investigations, Forensic Accounting, Privacy, and Compliance.

Steve brings a large amount of experience across multiple industries and government agencies. He is an expert in implementing large data analysis projects across the world, including Inland Revenue in the UK and Argentina, New Zealand, Africa and across Europe. Previously, he was the manager of Data Architecture and Data Services for a large mortgage company. He is a frequent speaker on data analytics and project management topics and speaks fluent German. He has been teaching at the Graduate School for over 10 years.

Steve has an M.B.A. from the University of St. Thomas and a B.S. in Computer Science from California Lutheran University and the Universität Salzburg in Austria. He is certified as a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE), Project Management Professional (PMP), and a Certified ScrumMaster (CSM).

## Pricing

**Tuition:** $649