Digital Horizons

Spreadsheet God Mode With AI

• James Walker & Brian Hastings

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Ever wish you could stop wrestling with formulas and just tell your spreadsheet what you need? We walk through how Gemini inside Google Sheets—and a layer of voice control with Super Whisper—turned complex budgeting and profitability analysis into a fast, conversational workflow. No screenshots, no hunting for VLOOKUP syntax, no bouncing between tabs. Just clear requests, instant structure, and explanations that make the model a true collaborator instead of a black box.

We start with the pain: years of copy-pasting, brittle dashboards, and stalled projects. Then we show the shift to a live, guided build where we ask for rolling revenue, service-line profitability, and client reporting, and watch Gemini assemble the logic. Super Whisper cleans up our speech so we can think out loud, move faster than typing, and reduce friction to near zero. The result isn’t a toy; it’s a working control panel that helps us make decisions on pricing, staffing, and priorities without waiting on someone else’s queue.

From there we zoom out. As Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude’s new data analysis expand, the local “AI implementation” layer gets thinner. Strategy still matters—deciding what to measure and why—but stitching apps and wrangling formulas moves into DIY territory for founders and operators. We compare when to stay in Sheets for a living dashboard versus when Claude can ingest exports and produce narrative reports with charts that rival consulting decks. We also talk about the next frontier: asking the model to write formulas directly into cells, maintaining a changelog, and building guardrails like validation rules and data dictionaries for trust and auditability.

If you’re ready to turn data into a conversation, this one lays out the exact steps, tools, and mindset shifts to get there. Subscribe, share this with a teammate who lives in spreadsheets, and leave a review telling us the first workflow you’ll rebuild with AI.

The Digital Horizons Podcast is hosted by:

James Walker - Managing Director WHD
Brian Hastings - Managing Director Nous

SPEAKER_01:

I was able to create some really complex formulas within this document.

SPEAKER_00:

It's becoming like sitting next to a$500 an hour expert who had previously built out dashboards and data analysis and sitting next to them and asking and just probing them for the information that you're wanting as it builds it for you in front of your eyes.

SPEAKER_01:

I've just entered God mode of Google Sheet spreadsheeting as of about two days ago. And I want to talk about my experience with this because I've been so shit at it for so long. And this morning I was up like I was I was excited about the spreadsheet. I actually went to sleep going, I'm gonna fucking wake up at 4 a.m. this morning and work through this budget shit spreadsheet, which has been pissing me off for a while and I never really got it to where I want it to be because I'm just shit at spreadsheets.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, let's talk about it. How AI is superpowering the everyday news in their day-to-day lives.

SPEAKER_01:

And like I'm pretty technical and I've been shit at it. So I think anybody who who's not used to working with programs and softwares would get a lot out of this. But not going to say this is anything new, this has probably been going on for a little while, but the integration between Google Docs and Gemini is magic. Like I used to, when I when I worked out, hey, ChatGPT can help me with doing spreadsheets, I was screenshotting bits of my spreadsheet and going, hey, column C and row 14, I need to work out a formula for this. And I take a screenshot of another tab and go, and I need to connect to this and all this kind of stuff. And it kind of worked, and it made me better than what I was previously doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it would give you an answer that you had to copy back into and then you kept going on your own.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you do more screenshots or you upload your screenshot, but then anytime you make the updates, it's now changed the spreadsheet. So then you got to download it as an Excel file, re-upload it again, and like it and again, it was way better than the previous mode, which was had to Google and go, hey, how what's the formula for this? And then you'd it'd probably you'd never get it worked out and you give up. But now you integrate Gemini into your Google Sheet and live, it I'm just talking to it. I'm just like, hey, okay, now let's work out what this formula is. Now I want to do this, and then it'll work it out. And so I was able to create some really complex formulas within this document without having to use any screenshots, without having to use Google and search stuff. I was and next tip I was doing, uh I've started using this thing, this is so I'm getting into too many tips here, but super whisper on top of this. So super whisper. Well you just talk to it. Yes, so voice to text, which uses AI and it actually understands what you're saying. Like I'll I'll I'll mumble a bunch of shit and I'll sort of stutter a bit, but it will then work out what I was trying to say and then input it into the text field. I'm hitting enter, that's all I'm doing. Yeah. Talking back into this thing. So using Super Whisper to talk to Gemini to then update my spreadsheet, and I was able to create exactly what I wanted out of this thing.

SPEAKER_00:

It's becoming like sitting next to a$500 an hour expert who had previously built out dashboards and data analysis and sitting next to them and asking and just probing them for the information that you're wanting as it builds it for you in front of your eyes.

SPEAKER_01:

It was unreal. And it's like it it just gives you capabilities and at speed that was impossible. Or that I would have to like I used to hire people to do this kind of shit. Um where now I'm just like, you know, it'd probably be quicker if it's all in my head anyway. I'm gonna have to brief it out to somebody. I can just get it done myself and at such speed and at such good quality, and it all just works.

SPEAKER_00:

So I think this is spelling a swift end for agencies that have just developed automations and AI implementations that required a customer or their customer getting all of their data together in a and effectively a data lake and then interrogating that data for an outcome with the tools that are being added to things like Google Sheets and even Microsoft. And Claude has a new data analysis tool as well that's replicating sort of McKinsey level reports. And it is quickly, just due to feature additions from these big behemoths, it's making AI implementation specialists at the local level pretty redundant pretty quickly. Of course, they're going to be needed for developing a strategy of what you could automate and streamline. But the ease of actually doing it yourself, it's becoming more and more possible. You are quite technical and your ability to do it, you probably jump in with a bit more confidence versus someone else in this space. But as they make it easier and easier, the typical business owner is going to be able to connect up different data pools into a lake. And then using this way of communicating with the data, rather than just building this big sheet once, you can just ask it for whatever you want. You can just say, Well, show me the profitability on this service line. Um, because I've pulled in my hours tracked in Asana and my job numbers and quotes from zero. That you would have previously needed an advanced CRM system and someone to build API or using ZPR and all that stuff. But that's gonna be the next thing I go and try. That's a disconnect I have in my business between Asana and the actual revenue dollars dollars earned. So being able to bring that in without paying a specialist weeks and weeks to build that out, um, it's gonna be amazing. But also just simple, like our client reporting, where the tool isn't holding you back. You're just getting the answers you need and getting those insights.

SPEAKER_01:

It just makes the makes it feel like anything's possible. Yeah, it feels like it when when you start getting things working for you in ways that you are unable to do or you're unable to access in a really simple way, it it just feels like a complete game changer in the way that you can operate your business, which is so fucking cool.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I haven't seen this working really well in the Microsoft environment yet with the co-pilot uh integration, but what I've been seeing and and from your experience is Gemini's integration really, really well. Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh sort of it's like I don't know whether it can update and anyone in the comments please let me know because I might just be an idiot and didn't think about doing this. But I'd like to be able to go, all right, cool. What is the formula? And then I'm pasting it into where I said, but having it update the spreadsheet for me. And I don't know where maybe I should just ask, can you update that? And maybe I that would have sold me even some more time. But I wasn't I wasn't asking it until I was asking what the formula was, it was feeding it back to me. I was copying it and putting it into the spreadsheet. I imagine the next evolution of this is hey, can you just put the formula in that cell? Yes. And maybe I can even do that now, and I'm I'm gonna try that as soon as I walk out of this door. Um, but that maybe that's gonna be the the next step of it is actually it updating your documents for you as well.

SPEAKER_00:

I have seen a lot of interest and updates around Claude's model being able to not just produce spreadsheets, but to read and assess the data and then build a report out of it based on exactly what you're looking for. Potentially, that is a shortcut that's going to happen where you're not even managing a sheet, you're just putting data in and then treating that data like the knowledge pool for the large language model and just asking it for outputs. Yes. Show me this versus this, show me an analysis of profitability in these service lines. And it goes and figures it all out on the inside. That is where we're seeing a lot of people using Clawed to outpace what they say people like McKinsey and Deloitte are providing in their um data analysis tools. So that's going to be one to try. Gemini with Sheets or Claude for for data analysis and report production.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. If you're not doing it yet, try it out. Like Gemini with Google Sheets and Super Whisper, you'll be amazed at what you can get done with it. Like it will completely change your ability to analyze and even just create data in in spreadsheets that is really useful for your business.

SPEAKER_00:

I've also seen Super Whisper with a lot of like vibe coding tools as well, where you're just constantly asking for tweaks and updates in the development of a website or the development of an app. Super Whispers are removing that barrier of typing that helps you get faster and faster at interacting with these uh AI tools.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, I was in with my wife the other night when the the NRL finals were on. She she loves that shit. I don't care. Um and it was a really good final, by the way. Well, I mean, I I was in the room. You were super whispery. I was I was I was I was building a website page for our business. I was creating a landing page basically, and she was just looking at me like, what are you doing? While she's screaming at the TV, and I'm just I'm just talking and chat GPT the whole time. But yeah, I I I love this. Thanks for watching today.

SPEAKER_00:

That's Digital Horizons. We'll be back next week.

Contributor

Brian Hastings

Co-host