Analyst To AI

Recently, I asked both Copilot (embedded in my spreadsheet) and ChatGPT to “write a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that calculates return on investment, IRR, and NPV when I input data”. The results were as follows:

Copilot –

ChatGPT –

I have consistently found Copilot to be more intuitive, especially when it comes to working with spreadsheets.

If anyone is interested this tool, I am willing to share it. However, I encourage everyone to take the time to start working with these AI tools and be creative in writing your own templates. It’s easy and a good way to understand what they’re capable of.

As finance professionals, we need to get more familiar and start using and leveraging AI. We will be more valuable to our employers and be on the front line, not in the back trying to keep up.

I once had a mentor who used to say that we in finance are accustomed to being in the back of the boat looking where we were. If we want to add value to our role, we need to be at the front of the ship looking for the iceberg. He was talking about how record keeping tends to be looking backward, but if we strive to be a CFO, we need to be looking forward. He was a CFO by the way, but this can be applied to our role in the era of artificial intelligence.

Let’s be on the bow not the stern. I’m really enjoying exploring and learning about this and having some fun journaling about it in this blog. As I said in my first post, I learn better by explaining and I hope my posts are helpful.