PEARSTOP LEARNING CENTRE
Spreadsheets revolutionized business in the 20th century, evolving from VisiCalc to Excel as essential tools for data work. But while they remain flexible and powerful, they’re also manual and error-prone. The next era—powered by AI—transforms spreadsheets from static grids into dynamic decision engines. This article explores how AI is automating spreadsheet processing, accounting, and costing workflows, and enabling prompt-based reporting. At Pearstop, we’re building tools to make that future real—turning complex data into instant insights, and spreadsheets into co-pilots.
There are few technologies more quietly revolutionary than the spreadsheet. Rows and columns, cells and formulas—it doesn’t sound thrilling. But the spreadsheet turned out to be the most impactful business tool of the 20th century. And let’s face it - the world kinda runs on spreadsheets, from banks to governments to planning little Jenny’s 3rd birthday party.
The modern spreadsheet was born out of frustration. In the late 1970s, Dan Bricklin, a Harvard MBA student, was tired of constantly recalculating paper-based tables during case studies. Alongside Bob Frankston, he created VisiCalc, the first digital spreadsheet program. It launched in 1979 for the Apple II, and overnight transformed the personal computer from a hobbyist toy into a business machine.
Lotus 1-2-3 followed in the early 80s, bringing spreadsheets to IBM PCs, and then Microsoft Excel arrived in 1985, eventually dominating the market. With the rise of Excel, the spreadsheet became the default interface for all kinds of data work: budgeting, forecasting, inventory management, financial modelling, and beyond.
But what made spreadsheets truly sticky was their flexibility. No matter the use case, a spreadsheet could probably do it. Formulas, macros, pivot tables—over time, they became both sandbox and system for millions of users.
Today, spreadsheets run the world—sometimes literally. Major financial decisions, M&A models, public budgets, and internal strategies are often built in Excel. Accountants, analysts, ops teams, and CFOs still live in spreadsheets. Even when tools like Tableau or QuickBooks or SAP exist, Excel remains the fallback, the glue between systems.
But this flexibility has a cost. Spreadsheets are manual. Error-prone. Unstructured. And often, entirely opaque to anyone but the creator. In 2012, JP Morgan lost over $6 billion in the "London Whale" trading scandal—partly due to an Excel error in a risk model. It's not just small teams cobbling together sheets. Even the giants rely on this fragile format.
So the world still runs on spreadsheets. But it's messy. And it doesn't have to be.
AI is changing how we interact with spreadsheets. It’s not just about making them smarter; it’s about changing the role of the spreadsheet itself. We’re moving from grid-based calculation to intent-based insight.
Here’s how:
Manual data wrangling is on its way out. Tools powered by AI can now ingest messy spreadsheets, detect formats, infer column meanings, extract entities, and even correct common human errors. Need to find quarterly EBITDA across 1,300 sheets with slightly different formats? That can now be done in seconds.
AI tools are already automating bookkeeping—categorizing expenses, reconciling transactions, flagging anomalies. For many SMEs, this means the end of the monthly crunch. Instead, you get always-on, real-time accounting that updates itself.
At Pearstop, we see this transformation firsthand. AI is automating costing workflows that used to take teams hours. By learning from historic spreadsheets, it can prefill 90% of data in new quotations, surface inconsistencies, and even suggest optimizations.
Soon, asking your spreadsheet a question will be as simple as writing a sentence. "Show me our top 5 customers by margin growth in Q1." AI will parse the request, find the right data, generate the pivot, and return a chart or narrative summary. It's no longer about navigating formulas—it's about accessing answers.
The ultimate shift is philosophical. Spreadsheets have always been a tool for thinking. But now, with AI, they become a co-thinker. Instead of doing the math, you state the goal: "Help me reduce costs on this proposal without touching quality." And your spreadsheet surfaces the variables that matter, the levers you can pull, and the impact of each option.
This shift doesn't mean spreadsheets disappear. It means they evolve. Like the command line evolved into graphical interfaces, the spreadsheet will become an interface to something more powerful. Behind the familiar rows and columns, AI models will be reading, learning, and guiding.
For teams still buried in spreadsheets, this is a wake-up call. Your workflows can be faster. Your insights richer. Your time better spent.
At Pearstop, we build tools that make this future tangible: transforming legacy data into intelligent suggestions, turning costing chaos into streamlined quoting, and empowering people to focus not on the inputs, but on the impact.
So yes—spreadsheets changed the world. But they’re not done yet. The next chapter is here, and it speaks your language.
For those who stay ahead of the curve, check out our latest videos on youtube or read this article on how a cinema was saved from bankruptcy after they broke down data silos and were able to integrally manage change.
Discover how Pearstop revolutionizes research for sales, procurement and due diligence. Access internal data swiftly, interact with large data rooms reliably, automatically label, categorise and price ledger data.
We believe in instant answers from your data. No hours spent on tedious, repetitive work—what you need, when you need it.