What's New in Excel?
As we fully embrace 2025, Microsoft Excel continues to evolve, bringing new features and enhancements that cater to the diverse needs of its users. The latest update introduces several exciting capabilities across different platforms, aimed at improving productivity, collaboration and user experience.
Excel is used by millions worldwide, with studies showing that proficiency in Excel leads to increased productivity and career advancement opportunities. This is why there are so many Excel training courses available, including the 14 Excel Training courses we offer!
Let's dive into the key highlights of Excel's new features:
Copilot Integration
Excel now includes Copilot capabilities, making it easier for users to perform complex data analysis and text manipulation. One of the standout features in this update is the ability to sync form data directly to Excel for the web. This real-time syncing ensures that you never miss a beat while working on your spreadsheets.
The introduction of Copilot to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers marks a new AI in our data handling! This AI-powered tool can summarise data, highlight trends, and even generate insights, transforming how professionals interact with information.
Copilot in Excel offers a suite of text analysis capabilities that allow for deeper, more intuitive insights. Whether you're summarising large datasets or seeking pattern recognition, Copilot can be your personal data analyst, hopefully enhancing productivity and even decision-making accuracy
Enhanced Text Analysis Tools
Not all data is numerical - there are important insights to be found through surveys, reviews, and other textual data. However, traditionally this has been both difficult and time consuming to do.
This new suite of text analysis tools is making it far easier to analyse your text data. By using Copilot in Excel, Python in Excel, or the new text functions you can now quickly manipulate and analyse textual data, allowing users to delve deeper into textual data alongside traditional numerical analysis. This integration is particularly beneficial for roles that require both qualitative and quantitative insight, enhancing overall data interpretation capabilities.
Focus Cell Feature
To improve visibility and data tracking, the Focus Cell feature highlights the active cell and its corresponding row and column. This is especially useful in complex spreadsheets, ensuring data accuracy and ease of navigation.
This feature is now generally available on desktop for both Windows and Mac, and there is also a new “Find and Replace” experience; by default, Focus Cell activates for “Find & Replace” commands, making it easier to locate the active cell as it moves position.
Language Functions
We love this capability that’s now available to both Mac and Windows Excel users!
Two new functions designed to simplify and automate translations directly within your spreadsheet, were introduced in 2024 and are now available to Mac and Windows Excel users:
- TRANSLATE() – a function that translates a text from one language to another.
- DETECTLANGUAGE() – a function that detects the language of the specified text
These functions simplify working in multilingual environments by allowing direct translation within the spreadsheet and language detection, facilitating far smoother communication in global teams.
Dark Mode
Responding to user feedback, Excel for Windows now supports Dark Mode, reducing eye strain and potentially extending battery life when used on compatible devices. It is, however, only available right now to Windows Insiders users
Forms Integration
This feature, previously available in Excel for the Web, is now available in the Windows app, with Mac support coming soon. Users can now integrate Microsoft Forms directly within Excel, linking forms to workbooks seamlessly for streamlined data collection and analysis.
Our Opinion
The January 2025 updates to Microsoft Excel show that Microsoft is listening to the feedback of its users and continual improvements and integrations with Copilot and Power BI ensure that Excel continues to bring a host of new features designed to meet the evolving needs of modern professionals. Whether you are looking to enhance data analysis, improve workflow efficiency, or ensure data accuracy, the new features in Excel offer tools to help you succeed.
However, while these updates bring improvements, take note that they are not all available to ALL users – click here to check if a specific feature is available on your OS.
Stay tuned for more updates as Excel continues to evolve, empowering users to achieve more with their data. And get in touch for expert-led Excel training to ensure you make the most of every feature!
