Using the AI Analyst ✨

AI Analyst Guide ✨

The AI Analyst is a spreadsheet copilot to build better spreadsheets, faster.

How to use it

Using the AI Analyst is straightforward:

1. Find the sparkle ✨ AI icon in the bar of the spreadsheet.
2. Click to open the AI Analyst panel on the right side of your screen.
3. Begin your interaction by typing your questions.

The AI Analyst is very versatile. To make the most of the AI Analyst, it's worth understanding its thought process and how it handles your questions.

How it thinks

Three main principles to keep in mind when asking questions to the Analyst:

1. The Analyst derives its knowledge about the dataset from a sample of rows and the header. This means it's able to understand and infer operations based on the context. For example, if your table has cost and revenue columns, you can ask it to compute profit.
2. The Analyst can analyze data from any table in your spreadsheet, including doing cross-table lookup columns, or merge and combine different tables. Use the @ symbol to select a Table you want to reference in your prompt.

Now let's dive into the different capabilities of the AI Analyst✨.

1. Data Analysis

The AI Analyst efficiently processes numerical data for metrics, data slicing, and table transformations.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "What is the average and median revenue for each product category?"
• ✅ "What is our top-selling product in each region?"
• ✅ "Provide a breakdown of our customer base by age group and average purchase value."
• ✅ "What's the median salary for females?"
• ✅ "How does our product performance vary across different regions and seasons?"
• ✅ "What does the column 'Bayesian classifier' mean"?
• ❌ "What's in this spreadsheet?"
• ❌ "Tell me insights about our sales" Most of the times this is too generic and the answer won't be deep enough.
• ❌ "Generate a report" Most of the times this is too generic and the answer won't likely match what you have in mind.
• ☝️ Tip: Refer to the column name you want to execute the action on. Mention explicitly the aggregation operation you want to perform or the dimension you want to use to pivot/slice the original dataset.
• ☝️ Tip: If you need to perform an operation that requires different intermediate steps, ask it one at a time. For example: on a daily sales dataset, to analyze weekly data, you need to first add a week column, and then aggregate the key metrics.

2. Add a Column

The AI Analyst can create new columns and understand your table's context based on column titles and sample data.

For instance, with "Revenue" and "Cost" columns, you can simply request to add a "Profit" column. The AI Analyst can also enrich your table with AI-powered functions, performing actions like sentiment analysis, data mining, or classification tasks.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Calculate the profit margin for each sale."
• ✅ "Add a column to @Table1 to check if the Part ID is on @Table2"
• ✅ "Add a column with @Employees with the salary of each employee from the @Salaries table”
• ✅ "Extract the numerical portion of the user_id."
• ✅ "Add a column with current stock prices for each company in our portfolio."
• ✅ "Add a 'Sentiment' column for each customer review"
• ❌ "Make a new column with sentiment analysis." Unclear what column you want to analyze.
• ✏️ Tip: When submitting a prompt that needs to lookup data on another table, explicitly mention (using the @ symbol) which table to add the column to.

We support several types of column transformations. See table below.

See the example below, where the address column is categorized into regions:

And here, how to use reference multiple tables to create a lookup column:

And finally, how to add stock prices to a list of tickers:

3. Web Research

Use the AI Analyst to research and scrape information from webpages in real-time. More often than not, Web Research is a special case of Column actions.

To use the researcher, make sure that the table has a column with a list of urls or webpages. Trigger it by using the keyword 'lookup' or 'scrape' in your prompt.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Add a column with the meta description of the pages"
• ✅ "Scrape the urls and add columns with the funding amount in millions and startup name"
• ❌ "Surf the web and extract information." The Analyst cannot surf the web as a whole, but only specified URLs
• ❌ "Find recent news about XYZ" Same as above.
• ✏️ Tip: Always mention that you want the agent to explicitly scrape/lookup the content of an existing URL and mention what data you want to extract from it.

4. Add a Chart

The AI Analyst can create charts to visualize your data effectively.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Create a bar chart showing total sales by product category."
• ✅ "Generate a column chart of monthly website visitors over the past year."
• ✅ "Create a combo chart with a column chart of revenue and a line chart of profit margin on the secondary axis."
• ✅ "Create a stacked area chart showing market share trends for our products."
• ❌ "Make a chart of the numbers." Too vague.
• ❌ "Turn data into a bar chart." Too vague.
• ✏️ Tip: Specify your preferred chart type, and what you want to see on both axes.

5. Merge tables

The AI Analyst can merge, join or combine multiple tables into one.

When you ask the Analyst to join multiple tables, it will show a column picker, allowing you to choose which columns to use for matching rows across the tables. You can combine as many tables as you like.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Join the @Employees and the @Salaries tables."
• ✅ "Append the @Employees_US, the @Employees_EMEA and the @Employees_ASEAN tables."
• ✏️ Tip: Always explicitly mention (using the @ symbol) which tables you want to merge.

6. Format cells

The AI Analyst can apply various formatting styles to ranges of cells, to enhance readability and highlight key information.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Format the 'Total Revenue' column as USD."
• ✅ "Format the 'Growth Rate' column as percentage."
• ✅ "Format the header in bold, red background."
• ✅ "Format range A1:B10 in light blue"
• ✅ "Polish the table"
• ✏️ Tip: Always mention the data range you want to format and the rule to apply.
• 📖 Formatting Options supported
  • Font styles: Bold, Italic, Underline
  • Colors: Font color, Background color
  • Number formats: Currency, Percentage, Date/Time
  • Text alignment: Left, Center, Right

7. Find & Replace

You can use the Analyst to find and replace values from a table.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Replace , with ; on column Addresses"
• ✅ "Remove & symbol from the Customer column"
• ✅ "Replace - with / everywhere"
• ✏️ Tip: Specific column or range you want apply the find and replace operation.

8. Create lists, models and calculators

You can use the analyst to create spreadsheets from scratch, from simple lists to complex models with dozens of formulas.

Here's how to do it:

• On an empty table, click the AI Analyst button.
• Select the "Generate with AI" option.
• Tell the Analyst what you want to build: be specific on your goal, the data and the columns you want to add.

Good questions, ineffective questions, and tips:

• ✅ "Create a compound interest calculator."
• ✅ "Create a list with all the countries in the EU and their capitals."
• ✅ "Create a table to track the interview process for my company, including position, manager, status, feedback, final result."
• ❌ "Make a sales report for a SaaS Business" Too vague.
• ❌ "Do a cap table for a Seed startup." Too vague.

Frequently Asked Questions

What about Data Privacy in the Rows AI Analyst?

We prioritize the security of your data:

• Your data is not used to train models that could benefit other users.
• We transmit only the minimum necessary information to the AI algorithm.
• For comprehensive information about our data handling practices, please visit rows.com/privacy.

We're committed to continuously improving the AI Analyst's capabilities. Stay tuned for updates in the coming weeks and months.

How do I activate the AI Analyst in Rows?

The AI Analyst is accessible to all users. Look for the ✨ icon on the top right corner of a Table.

What are the usage limits for AI Analyst?

The Free plan includes limited queries per month. The Plus plan offers unlimited usage.

Which model powers the AI Analyst?

The AI Analyst uses a combination of OpenAI's GPT-4o models, Llama and other LLMs. We regularly update it to the latest available models.

Can I use a different model with the AI Analyst?

Currently, we exclusively use a series of models selected by us. For enterprise solutions or custom requirements, please contact us at enterprise@rows.com or use the "Chat with us" option in your Rows account's support menu.

Is my data used for model training?

No. The AI Analyst does not use your data to train models that could be used by others. We minimize the data sent to the AI algorithm. For more details on our data processing, visit rows.com/privacy.

What data is shared with the model?

To protect your privacy, we send the AI model a summary of your dataset, including:

• Table headers
• A sample of up to 5 rows of data
• Basic dataset statistics (e.g., min and max values)

Personal data is only shared if it's included in the first row/column or the sample rows.

What should I do if the AI Analyst is taking longer than expected?

If processing time exceeds 30 seconds, we recommend waiting briefly and trying again.