{"slug": "agents-still-can-t-automate-excel", "title": "Agents still can't automate Excel", "summary": "AI agents still cannot reliably automate Excel evaluation, especially in cloud environments without the Excel application installed, according to Orcaset's eval suite. Agents often fall back to hidden Python scripts to estimate cell values, which can produce results that do not match the workbook's actual calculated output, as demonstrated by a benchmark run where a sensitivity table returned #NAME? errors but the agent reported Python-estimated values.", "body_md": "# Agents Still Can't Automate Excel\n\nAI agents have become much better at *building and editing* Excel workbooks over the past six months but still struggle to *evaluate* them. Agents especially struggle in environments where the Excel application isn't installed, an increasingly common bottleneck as AI moves to always-on, scaled cloud setups. In those environments, agents may silently fall back to shadow analysis in hidden Python scripts.\n\n## Analysis with Excel\n\nWorking with Excel involves two main components:\n\nthe workbook file, and\n\nthe Excel application, which interprets the file and performs calculations.\n\n### Excel Files\n\nAccessing a file's content is straightforward in most cases. The `xlsx`\n\nformat is a zipped archive containing a collection of files, most of them written in highly structured XML. On Windows or macOS, you can inspect `xlsx`\n\nfiles by changing the file extension to `.zip`\n\nor opening the workbook with an archive utility.\n\nCell contents are defined in worksheet XML files. For example, a cell might be represented as follows:\n\nThe `<c ...> ... </c>`\n\nelement contains the complete definition of cell `C20`\n\n. The inner `<f>`\n\nelement stores the cell's formula, `=C19*$B$6`\n\n, while the `<v>`\n\nelement holds the most recently cached result, if available. Excel updates this value when it recalculates and saves the workbook.\n\nThe file structure is well documented, and there are a number of open-source libraries like `openpyxl`\n\nthat make it easy to read, edit, and create Excel files.\n\n### Evaluating Files\n\nAgents can readily open `xlsx`\n\nfiles, modify them, and read stored cell values, but actually recalculating `<v>`\n\ncell values requires a program that can interpret the file. The Excel application is the canonical interpreter. If Excel isn't available, as it often isn't in sandboxed or cloud environments, agents need an alternative program.\n\nThe most common alternative is LibreOffice, an open-source office suite that can import and export `xlsx`\n\nfiles and supports many Excel features. It is free, available across platforms, and includes a command-line interface that agents can run programmatically in headless mode. The Codex and Claude Code command-line agents both usually fall back to LibreOffice if they can't find Excel.\n\nWhile LibreOffice is broadly compatible with Excel, there are unsurprisingly gaps. Converting a workbook to and from LibreOffice's internal representation can alter or break some Excel features. What-If Analysis data tables, which are widely used for sensitivity analysis, are one example.\n\n### Hidden Evaluation Workarounds\n\nOrcaset's eval suite includes benchmarks against `xlsx`\n\nautomation. Based on actual agent transcripts, agents sometimes update and report cell values by silently estimating results with Python scripts instead of evaluating spreadsheet formulas. As a result, the reported numbers do not always match the workbook’s actual behavior.\n\nThe workbook [here](https://framer.com/projects/Orcaset--yyemU7pTzo29pCCq4xzH-77xp7?node=IE28aJBzL) is a real artifact from a benchmark run. The workbook's sensitivity table returns `#NAME?`\n\nerrors. However, the agent session still reported sensitized output derived from a hidden Python script. In this case, the agent built the `xlsx`\n\nfile, estimated the cell values in Python, wrote those estimates to the cells' `<v>...</v>`\n\nelements, and reported the results without refreshing the workbook and verifying that they matched the workbook's calculated output. Even though LibreOffice was available in the environment, the session relied on the separate Python calculations instead.\n\nThis particular trial used GPT 5.6 Sol in an environment with LibreOffice installed. To its credit, the estimated values were correct within an acceptable margin, although this is a tiny model.\n\n## An Alternative Approach with Orcaset\n\nOrcaset takes an entirely different approach to financial modeling. It builds financial models in pure Python code rather than attempting to interpret `xlsx`\n\nfiles. Model calculations are fully traceable, deterministic, and programmatically accessible by agents. Additionally, since Orcaset isn't limited to a spreadsheet's two-dimensional grid of `A1:B2`\n\ncells, it can leverage software best practices like type checks to guard against invalid models.\n\nOrcaset lets agents fully automate financial model creation, modification, and evaluation by running in an open Python environment. Since it doesn't rely on proprietary file formats or depend on third-party applications, agents can drive automated analysis, even at scale across hundreds of cloud sandboxes.\n\nTry Orcaset, view examples, or star the repository on [GitHub](https://github.com/orcaset/orcaset-py).", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel", "canonical_source": "https://www.orcaset.com/blog/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel", "published_at": "2026-08-27 16:03:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-27 16:20:07.368678+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-agents", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Orcaset", "Excel", "LibreOffice", "Codex", "Claude Code", "GPT 5.6 Sol", "openpyxl"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/agents-still-can-t-automate-excel.jsonld"}}