February 1, 2026
Excel vs Ex-Cell
Two kinds of AI users are emerging. The gap between them is astonishing
Power users zoom ahead while office Copilot stalls
TLDR: The post says AI users are splitting into power users with coding agents and basic chat-only users, with Microsoft’s Copilot blamed for holding enterprises back. Commenters argue over safety, control, and hype, while joking that Excel still runs the world and Copilot can’t even read cell A1 — and that’s the problem.
Internet commenters say AI now has two tribes: the power users sprinting ahead with tools like Claude Code and coding agents, and the chat-only crowd stuck poking Microsoft’s Copilot. The original post torches Copilot’s Excel add-on and claims even Microsoft teams are testing Claude internally — cue drama. Finance folks show up in the thread flaunting Python-powered spreadsheets, while skeptics clutch pearls. “Terrifying,” warns one, about non-experts building financial models they can’t verify. Others roast Copilot’s glitches: one worker says the Excel Copilot button literally can’t read cell A1. Meme of the day: “Excel is the world’s most popular programming language.” Not everyone buys the “two tribes” story. One commenter argues agents only got useful in the last few months, so of course adoption looks uneven; hype-labeled toys like MCP and langchain fizzled. Another insists raw control beats corporate interfaces, while big-company IT locks everything down so employees “vibe code” around the walls. Meanwhile, an Excel defender reminds everyone the global economy still runs on spreadsheets. The mood: half exhilarated, half exasperated — with a spicy side of “Copilot has market share by bundling, not merit.”
Key Points
- •The article identifies two AI user types: power users employing advanced tools (e.g., Claude Code, MCPs) and users who only chat with AI tools like ChatGPT.
- •It argues Microsoft Copilot dominates enterprise usage via Office 365 bundling but performs poorly, especially compared to CLI coding agents such as GitHub Copilot CLI.
- •The article claims Microsoft is rolling out Claude Code internally, suggesting recognition of Copilot’s limitations despite Microsoft’s stake in OpenAI.
- •Enterprise environments hinder advanced AI use due to locked-down systems, lack of internal APIs, and siloed or outsourced engineering, impeding safe sandboxed agents.
- •The piece contrasts large enterprises’ struggles with smaller companies that adopt AI more effectively; it also criticizes AI integrations in Excel and Google Sheets (Gemini).