en.Wedoany.com Reported - Microsoft recently launched new features for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Excel aimed at finance professionals, helping financial teams improve workflow efficiency through skills, new financial connectors, and enhanced traceability capabilities. Microsoft's finance department uses Copilot in Excel in real-world workflows, reducing time spent searching for information and rebuilding analyses, allowing teams to focus on decision-making. They not only use Copilot but also provide feedback to drive the product to meet the standards required for their work. Microsoft stated that these features have undergone stress testing by a leading financial organization.
The new features include a "Skills" capability, allowing teams to define how Copilot should complete common processes, such as building discounted cash flow models, closing books, refreshing monthly reporting models, or preparing variance analyses. A library of sample financial skills is currently available, and users can also build custom skills using open-standard markdown files by saving a SKILL.md file to OneDrive. Developers and partners will be able to build and deploy skills through the Microsoft Marketplace and the Microsoft 365 admin center in the future, with initial partners including financial and ERP solution providers such as LSEG, Ramp, Rogo, Samaya AI, Velixo, and Vena. In addition to internal testing, Microsoft is also collaborating with the Financial Modeling Institute to use its real-world financial modeling case library as a benchmark for evaluating Copilot's performance in financial work.
In terms of data connectivity, Copilot in Excel has added several new financial data connectors that bring public and private market data directly into workbooks: CB Insights introduces predictive intelligence on private companies and markets into Excel for prospecting and evaluating emerging markets; Daloopa provides audit-ready fundamental data from public materials such as SEC filings, investor presentations, and press releases for updating operating models and conducting complex financial analysis; FactSet connects financial and alternative data to Excel workflows for modeling, screening, and market analysis; Morningstar brings investment research and data, including analyst research, ratings, and portfolio analysis, into Excel; PitchBook provides institutional-grade private capital market intelligence, including company profiles, transaction history, fund data, and analyst research; S&P Global Deterministic Search, developed by Kensho, offers API-based structured access for company research, financial analysis, and multi-entity comparisons. Note that third-party connectors and data providers may require separate licensing or subscriptions from the respective providers. FactSet is in preview and will be officially released in July.
The new features also support personalization and workbook rules, allowing users to set preferences once for continuous application. Workbook rules capture structure, naming, and formula conventions as a worksheet within the workbook, moving with the file. Before executing an action, users can select the "Plan with Copilot" feature, which outlines the scope, worksheets, formulas, and assumptions of the planned update and asks clarifying questions. After changes, each edit remains traceable with links to affected cells, with changes attributed to Copilot and displayed in the "Show Changes" pane.
Personalization, workbook rules, pre-built skills, joint Copilot connectors, Plan with Copilot, and Copilot attribution in Show Changes are generally available to Microsoft 365 Copilot customers for Excel on the web, Windows, and Mac. Custom skills are available starting today through the Insiders channel on Windows and Mac, and will gradually roll out to all users next month. Partner-built skills will be released in the third quarter of 2026.
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