Formulas, fandom and an AI-fueled future — Microsoft Excel celebrates 40 years

When Andrew Grigolyunovich first started using Excel more than two decades ago, he never imagined the spreadsheet program would land him in Las Vegas or on ESPN.  

The Latvian financial consultant founded what’s become known as the Microsoft Excel World Championship — an actual e-sport held in a flashy Las Vegas arena with competitors entering through a hype tunnel, official commentators, screaming fans and the whole nine yards.

“It’s bonkers. I mean, it is utterly bonkers,” says Excel e-sport competitor Giles Male, of the now-annual event.  

They’re both part of a surprisingly huge fan base for the number crunching spreadsheet program, which celebrates its 40th birthday this week. Since its launch in 1985, Excel has become far more than an indispensable tool for wrangling data and other chaos into neat rows and columns, helping people around the world to tidy up their work and lives. 

Companies around the globe rely on Excel and its newer AI-powered capabilities to do things that would have seemed far-fetched even a decade ago. MetLife has used Copilot in Excel, combined with GitHub Copilot, to automate disaster risk-tracking for wildfires. Hyundai Glovis used Excel to streamline shipment performance management. The NFL is using Copilot in Excel to help analysts with game-day insights. 

And Excel’s just-announced Agent Mode means you can create high quality, AI-generated spreadsheets by simply prompting Copilot, making it even easier to do complex tasks. It’s like handing off work to an Excel expert while you simply steer and guide.

If you can dream it, you can spreadsheet it

The program’s popularity over the past four decades likely comes from the fact that it can be used for so many different things. 

“There are so many fascinating ways people use Excel — far beyond the typical finance or accounting scenarios,” says Cuong Pham, who manages a global community of passionate Excel users and fans. 

Excel has been the subject of everything from expert tutorials to stand-up comedy. People have used it to track meal planning, workouts and pay bills. They’ve used it to simulate dice-rolling, card-shuffling and other games, including the retro cult-favorite Pac-Man. 

Some have used the grid-oriented program to design elaborate quilts by making a cross-stich pattern. Others have used it for creative animations or making literal art, coloring individual squares to design intricate, pointillism-style works. 

A football club in the English Premier League has even used it to map out stadium sets to create massive fan displays.

“I’ve seen people turn Excel into a synthesizer to make music, or even build simulation games,” Pham says. “The community keeps evolving — people are launching businesses around this, from creating short-form tutorials to publishing full-length books.”

Excel goes competitive — and steals the spotlight

Grigolyunovich first started participating in a financial modeling contest using Excel back in 2012. When the competition fizzled out in 2019, he wanted to find a way to keep the competitions going.   

“You know, the main fun being there is for the players, but I really saw right from the start that there needed to be some way to make this spectator friendly,” he says.   

He believed in his vision of an Excel e-sport and kept going. The sport grew in popularity and in 2023 became a world championship in Las Vegas, with national media stories and even coverage on ESPN.  

Male, who has served as a commentator for the contest’s internet livestreams and cable network coverage, says he’s found his place in life online creating content about Excel.   

“In general, the Excel community is great because it is just a bunch of people that wouldn’t, I think — under any circumstances — expect to be calling themselves esports athletes,” he chuckles.  

Male took the “fun side” of the Excel fandom even further with his personal brand, The Humble MVP. He’s made multiple elaborate music videos about himself and Excel, which he says has helped increase awareness of his training business.

Finding new ways to think outside the cell

The widespread enthusiasm for Excel inspired Pham to help build the Excel Creator Program and to work with enthusiasts both inside and outside Microsoft. He says he’s astounded by the creativity of people who find unique ways of using Excel. 

And he expects to see people doing even more with it in the coming years, especially as the product’s capabilities continue to evolve with AI. The ways it can help people and organizations get new insights and empower creativity feel nearly limitless, he says. 

“At its core, Excel is a grid for data — but what you can do with it is absolutely incredible,” he says. “It’s an amazingly powerful tool.”