How to Use Copilot App Skills and Voice Prompts in Excel

If you've clicked the Copilot icon in Excel and gotten a task pane that doesn't look quite right, you're not alone. The default pane opens a general chat window, but the real productivity gains come from switching to App Skills — the workbook-aware Copilot experience that can inspect your data, suggest formulas, and insert columns directly.

In this guide, I walk through how to access App Skills and use Copilot's built-in voice commands to work faster with your data.

YouTube Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRNAPajU4Qw

How to Switch to App Skills

When you click the Copilot button on the Home tab, look for a small dropdown arrow next to it. Click the dropdown and you'll see at least two options:

• Chat — the default general-purpose Copilot window
• App Skills — a workbook-aware pane that understands your sheet structure

Select App Skills and the tooltip will confirm: "Start a chat focused on what Copilot can do with your workbook." This is the pane you want for Excel tasks — it can inspect your data, suggest formulas, create columns, and more.

Using Voice Prompts for Faster Work

One of the most underrated features is Copilot's microphone button. Instead of typing out complex prompts, speak your request naturally. This is especially helpful when you need to give detailed instructions.

For example, with invoice dates in column F, you can speak a prompt like: "For the invoice date in column F, add a new column that shows the month name extracted from the date. For example, F2 would show August and F3 would show September."

Copilot processes your voice input, interprets the request, identifies the TEXT function as the right approach, and inserts the formula — all without you typing a single character.

Tips for Better Voice Prompts

• Be specific — mention column letters and give examples of expected output
• Give context — describe what the data looks like so Copilot picks the right function
• Review before accepting — always check the suggested formula before applying it to your entire dataset

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