Welcome back to The One-Pager.
Financial modeling and AI news in about 90 seconds.
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One Big Headline
Microsoft rolled out a big Copilot-in-Excel update built specifically for finance last week, which is right down the fairway for the work we do.
Biggest thing they've added is Skills, just like Anthropic (Claude) launched several months ago.
The skills are all the standard things you'd expect: build a reporting pack, build the three statements, model a DCF, etc., and you can build custom skills if you'd like.
You can also save workbook rules and preferences, so the automation follows your style and maps to your standards.
There's another wave of data connectors (FactSet, Morningstar, PitchBook, S&P Global, etc.), and perhaps what I find most interesting, a "change tracking" functionality that shows what AI edited vs. what the humans edited.
🔥 Hot take 1: if you have dogsh*t data, don't expect these services to be helpful. Clean data, clear processes, and a well-structured chart of accounts are paramount to taking advantage of these AI features.
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Despite "learning curve overwhelm," which I feel every time I see an announcement like this (who has the time to learn all this stuff??), what I'm really noticing is the commoditization of these AI service providers.
Every month it feels like a horse race: ChatGPT was the early front-runner, then Google caught up with Gemini and images, then Claude rose from the ashes with its Excel plug-in and skills, and now we're looking to Copilot, which initially felt like a laughing stock amongst these other players, now seems like leader in the clubhouse for finance.
🔥 Hot take 2: these AI models will all eventually become 95% similar as they compete for your attention.
And as a finance professional specifically, I'm starting to think I might as well just give my soul over to Microsoft, who basically already has my email and my spreadsheet. They can have my tokens too.
The $100/month I'm spending on Claude right now is suddenly feeling duplicative since that same model is available through Copilot. But it knows me, right?
Hard to say if/when I'll change, but the thought of wasting 2x the spend on basically the same output is frustrating.
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What I find most cool about this whole thing has nothing to do with the new features, but rather that Microsoft has partnered with Financial Modeling Institute to support their development of Copilot in Excel for financial modeling.
Ian Schnoor, executive director at FMI, is a friend and included me in the Financial Modeling Global Leaders Council, which will launch several reports over the next year to help advance the modeling discipline -- I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
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As usual, I have no idea what the future holds, but I'm watching with eager (and exhausted) eyes.
Other stuff to check out:
An Inside Look at Copilot in Excel -- Microsoft's own writeup of how it grades Copilot on real finance workbooks, including model structure and auditability. A useful read for deciding where to trust it and where to double-check.
Previewing GPT-5.6 Sol -- OpenAI's newest model, but the real story is the access. It launched to about 20 government-approved organizations only, the first US frontier model gated behind a government access list. Most of us can't touch it yet.
That's it for this one. See you next time.
—Chris