How to ask AI questions about a spreadsheet

A spreadsheet often arrives with a question attached. Your bank exports a year of transactions as a CSV and you want to know what you spent on software. A colleague sends a budget workbook with six tabs and asks whether the marketing line went up. A survey tool hands you 400 rows of responses, and the useful part is somewhere in the free-text column.

This guide covers how people usually get answers out of spreadsheets, and how to add one to Fabric and ask its AI assistant about it in plain language, with the related documents in the same conversation.

How people usually get answers from a spreadsheet

Filters, sorting and pivot tables in Excel or Google Sheets are the standard tools, and for people who use them every day they’re quick and exact. For occasional users, building a pivot table to answer one question can take longer than the question deserves, and the result has to be rebuilt when the data changes.

Formulas are the next step. SUMIF and VLOOKUP answer most questions about totals and matches, though they need the data to be tidy and the person writing them to know the column layout. Free-text columns, such as survey comments or transaction descriptions, are hard to analyze with formulas at all.

Many people now paste rows into ChatGPT or upload the file to a chatbot. That handles the free-text questions well. The spreadsheet tends to arrive without its context, though: the invoices behind the expense lines, the brief that explains the budget categories, or last year’s version for comparison.

Step 1: Add the spreadsheet to Fabric

Fabric reads CSV and XLSX files, and the AI can read them. Drag the file into the web or desktop app, paste it, or click Upload a file. Exports from banking apps, accounting tools and survey platforms usually come out as one of these two formats.

For spreadsheets kept in Google Sheets, connect Google Drive through the Fabric marketplace. The Google Drive connection syncs both ways, so the file in Fabric stays current as people edit it. Connections need a paid plan. Spreadsheets sent as email attachments can be forwarded to your Fabric email address.

Step 2: Put the spreadsheet next to its context

A table of numbers answers more questions when the assistant can see what the numbers refer to. Create a folder for the piece of work and add the spreadsheet along with whatever explains it: the project brief, the invoices or receipts behind an expense export, the email that set the targets, or the previous year’s workbook.

Freelancers often keep one folder per client with the invoice log, contracts and payment records together, which is the setup described in how to organize invoices as a freelancer. The same structure works for a household budget, a grant report or a sales pipeline export.

Step 3: Ask about the data in plain language

With the folder open, bring up the AI assistant, which scopes itself to the files in that folder. To skip opening it, right-click the folder and add it to the assistant’s context.

Ask what you’d otherwise build a formula for, phrased the way you’d say it. “Which suppliers appear most often in this export?” “What are the main complaints in the comments column?” “Which budget lines are higher than last year’s workbook?” “Do any transactions in the CSV lack a matching invoice in this folder?” Questions that mix the spreadsheet with documents are the ones that are hardest to do by hand.

Answers cite their sources with clickable references, so you can open the file the assistant drew from. For figures that will go into a tax return, a board report or an invoice, check them against the spreadsheet itself before you use them, the same way you would check a colleague’s working.

Step 4: Refine with follow-up questions

Spreadsheet questions usually lead to other questions. If the assistant says software spending rose, ask which subscriptions drove it. If it lists the common survey complaints, ask for a few representative comments under each. Each turn narrows the answer without you rewriting the original request.

The models available come from several labs (Gemini, OpenAI, Claude, DeepSeek, Grok, Qwen and others), all under one subscription. If one model’s answer to a data question seems off, you can ask the same question with another and compare.

Step 5: Save the findings and repeat them on a schedule

Save a useful answer as a note so the finding stays next to the data. A short note like “Q3 software spend: main increases and why” is easier to find later than a chat, and Fabric search picks it up by meaning when you look for it months from now.

If the same analysis comes round every week or month, background agents can run on a schedule you set, with a plain-language prompt describing the work and control over which folders each agent can access. Recurring data analysis is one of the common uses. Background agents are on the Pro and Team plans.

Frequently asked questions

Can AI read an Excel file?

Yes. Fabric’s AI can read XLSX and CSV files, so you can ask questions about a spreadsheet once it’s in Fabric.

Can I ask AI questions about a Google Sheet?

Yes, by connecting Google Drive. The connection syncs both ways and needs a paid plan.

Do I need to know formulas to analyze a spreadsheet with AI?

No. You ask in plain language, such as “which month had the highest spending”, and the assistant answers from the file with a reference you can open.

Can the AI answer questions using a spreadsheet and other documents together?

Yes. Put them in one folder and open the assistant there. It analyzes everything in the folder, so a question can draw on the spreadsheet and the documents around it.

Should I trust the numbers the AI gives me?

Treat them as a starting point and check any figure you plan to rely on against the source file. The cited references take you to it.

Can I analyze the free-text column in a survey export?

Yes. Ask the assistant to group the comments into themes or pull out examples of a particular complaint.

How do I ask about my bank statements or bills?

Upload the CSV export or the statements themselves and ask the assistant in that folder. How to ask AI questions about your bills and documents covers household paperwork in more depth.

Can I ask AI about a spreadsheet on the free plan?

Yes, with limited AI use. The Google Drive connection and background agents need paid plans. Pricing lists what each plan includes.

Can I work with spreadsheets from my file system?

Yes. The Fabric desktop app mounts Fabric as a drive on Mac, Windows and Linux, so you can save exports straight into a Fabric folder.