Microsoft has expanded its Agent Mode from the web to desktop versions of Excel on Windows and macOS. Unlike standard chatbots, this agent operates autonomously to plan and execute complex tasks, such as building financial models or cleaning unstructured data, without constant user supervision.
A key feature of this update is model flexibility. Users can switch between OpenAI’s GPT-5.2, which excels at structured data and math, and Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5, which is optimized for complex reasoning. The agent also supports live web searching to inject real-time market data directly into cells.