Excel Power Query + Copilot Tutorial

About this video

Kevin demonstrates importing data into Excel with simple Copilot prompts instead of manual Power Query work, using his fictional Kevin Cookie Company spreadsheets. First, web data: he opens the Copilot pane (Home tab or the in-cell Copilot icon > Ask Copilot) and prompts for current exchange rates for several currencies; Copilot returns a sourced table he inserts onto a new sheet, then a follow-up prompt calculates each cookie’s price in local currencies using that exchange-rate table — he notes Copilot adds new columns rather than overwriting existing content. A second web prompt returns the 10 largest companies in the world by market cap as an insertable table. Next, internal Microsoft 365 content: prompting ‘Show me this week’s meetings in a table’ pulls his Outlook calendar into Excel, and a follow-up prompt adds meeting descriptions, illustrating that Word, PowerPoint, email, and calendar content stored in Microsoft 365 can be pulled in. For organizational data, a prompt for employees who report to CEO Patti Fernandez returns her direct reports from Azure Active Directory. Finally, cross-spreadsheet sync: Copilot finds a customer orders spreadsheet stored in SharePoint, previews its table, and imports it to a new sheet as a live Power Query connection; he edits an order’s status to ‘Delivered’ in the source file and shows the change flowing through after clicking Refresh on the Query tab. He notes the traditional Data-tab Power Query route still exists for manual importing and formatting.

Key takeaways

• Copilot in Excel can fetch live web data (e.g., exchange rates, market-cap rankings) from a plain-language prompt and insert it as a table with sources shown
• Follow-up prompts can compute new columns from inserted data, but Copilot only adds new data — it never overwrites your existing cells
• You can pull internal Microsoft 365 content — Outlook calendar, email, Word, PowerPoint — and org data from Azure Active Directory into a sheet by prompting
• Importing another spreadsheet (e.g., from SharePoint) via Copilot creates a live Power Query connection; source edits appear after Refresh on the Query tab
• Traditional Power Query via the Data tab remains available if you want manual control over import and formatting

Episode details: published April 3, 2025 · 8:54 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Kevin Stratvert’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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