Skip to main content

The Shortcut AI Excel agent could one-shot spreadsheet jobs. Heres how to try it.

a spreadsheet on a screen

There's a new AI agent on the block for people who spend their waking hours inside spreadsheets.

Navigate to Shortcut AI's website, and you'll find a page that looks almost exactly like an empty Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. The main difference is a sidebar chatbot that can be tasked with taking on the tedious legwork of building, say, complex financial models or competitive analyses.

Because Shortcut is agentic, meaning it can handle multi-step tasks on the user's behalf, the tool can do more than just generate Excel formulas or analyze spreadsheet data. In a demo on X, Nico Christie, founder and CEO of the Shortcut AI agent, showed how the tool swapped out the data from a Microsoft distributed cash flow analysis (DCF) for Google data by looking up Google's SEC filings and populating the data in the same template.

Shortcut launched on Monday with a rather ominous tagline: "Try Shortcut (before your boss does)." Christie also said on X that the Shortcut Excel agent "one-shots most knowledge work tasks on Excel."

In the launch video, Christie said that the company tested Shortcut's skills in private equity, banking, consulting, and product management tasks against first-year analysts from McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and other firms.

When scored by managers from the same firm, he said Shortcut "won" against the analysts 89.1 percent of the time, although details about how this "win rate" was scored is unspecified. Christie also claimed Shortcut beat ChatGPT Agent 90 percent of the time. Mashable cannot independently verify these claims, however.

The advent of agentic work tools like Shortcut calls to mind Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's prediction that AI could wipe out half of entry-level white collar jobs. Disruptive tech throughout history has often targeted manual labor and blue-collar jobs through automation and robotics. But today's advanced AI models promise to automate desk job grunt work and even complex office tasks. A recent study from SignalFire found a decrease in hiring for entry-level tech jobs, suggesting AI's impact on the job market is already in effect.

The optimistic view is that tools like Shortcut will work for workers by automating time-consuming tasks, and thus freeing up space for more creative and strategic work that AI isn't as a good at. The outcome may vary from company to company, but agentic AI already shaping the way employees approach their jobs.

Indeed, the Shortcut AI agent is marketed as a secret weapon for finance bros, consultants, and the like. You can edit existing Excel files in Shortcut and export it back to Excel. "No one would ever know that it was made in Shortcut," Christie said in the launch video.

And heavy spreadsheet users are already paying attention. "Looks like a massive part of finance workflow got automated by AI," said finance creator and writer @HighYieldHarry on X.

"This is a really big moment for the Finance industry! Exciting times we're in," posted Michael Yuan, cofounder of fintech company Waverly AI.

Yuan also pointed out some of Shortcuts current limitations: it's slow and has formatting issues. Christie himself also shared that it's "not perfect" and needs to be easier for users to review.

How to try Shortcut AI

Shortcut offers two plans: Shortcut Pro for $40 a month or Shortcut Max for $200 a month, which gets power users everything in the Pro subscription plus unlimited access to its more advanced model and other perks. There's also a 7-day free trial for either option.

You can learn more at tryshortcut.ai.

Note: The Shortcut AI Excel agent is unrelated to the iOS Shortcuts app, which Apple said would be getting an AI makeover during WWDC 2025. There is also an unrelated agentic AI company called Shortcut.



from Mashable https://ift.tt/laBUosz
https://ift.tt/I9NuLCB
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WORKING 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG | Anti-Ban File

 WORKING 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG | Anti-Ban File - techy teacher 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG Howdy Buddies! We are back with new theme on PUBG versatile 2.0. I genuinely want to believe that you all update your PUBG App in light of the fact that on 11 May PUBG new update has been shown up, and pretty much every client update it. As you most likely are aware my site is the best wellspring of hacking and breaking, on my site you get the most recent reports on game hacks with reasonable recordings. Today, I give you the most recent 2.0 No Recoil File For PUBG. This update is truly astounding, PUBG 2.0 report a few new and intriguing elements with regards to this update. PUBG presents new livik map and in this guide we see a great deal of new things. This new guide is entirely unexpected and PUBG add a few games in it. In this guide, you additionally appreciate soccer challenge and gather coins in remuneration to purchase plunder. How about we examine every one of the new elements ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meta Connect 2024: What to expect, including Quest 3S and new AR smart glasses

Meta Connect 2024 is so close, you can almost taste it. Launching during the week of Sept. 23, the social media giant is expected to rollout hardware and software goodies that will intrigue VR gamer enthusiasts, AI aficionados, and smart glasses devotees. But what, specifically, does Meta have up its sleeves? We have a few guesses based on credible reports. What to expect at Meta Connect 2024 Last year, the Meta Quest 3 was announced in early June, but it got its full reveal at Meta Connect 2023. The headset boasted a sleeker, more comfortable design, as well as new AR capabilities, that made it more appealing than its predecessor. Once again, for Meta Connect 2024, the social media giant is expected to drop a new VR headset, but it's not necessarily an upgrade over the Quest 3. Meta Quest 3S Rumor has it that Meta is planning on revealing a cheaper, more budget-friendly version of the Quest 3 called "Quest 3S." Tweet may have been deleted Whether it was intent...
Post a Comment
Read more

When the clocks change for Daylight Saving Time, and why we do it at all

The clocks on our smartphones do something bizarre twice a year: One day in the spring, they jump ahead an hour, and our alarms go off an hour sooner. We wake up bleary-eyed and confused until we remember what just happened. Afterward, "Daylight Saving Time" becomes the norm for about eight months (And yes, it's called "Daylight Saving" not "Daylight Savings." I don't make the rules). Then, in the fall, the opposite happens. Our clocks set themselves back an hour, and we wake up refreshed, if a little uneasy.  Mild chaos ensues at both annual clock changes. What feels like an abrupt and drastic lengthening or shortening of the day causes time itself to seem fictional. Babies and dogs demand that their old sleep and feeding habits remain unchanged. And more consequential effects — for better or worse — may be involved as well (more on which in a minute). Changing our clocks is an all-out attack on our perception of time as an immutable law of ...
Post a Comment
Read more