Orbo for Excel
Learn Excel with AI: just ask, and Orbo shows you on your own sheet
Orbo is an AI assistant for Excel that sees your screen. Ask out loud how to do something, why a number looks wrong, or what a formula means. Orbo answers in plain English, draws on your screen to show where to click, walks you through it step by step, or does the task for you.
Free plan · Windows 10 and 11 · Works with any Excel version · Updated
Why learning Excel is hard on your own
Excel is one of the most useful skills you can have at work, and one of the most frustrating to pick up. The program has hundreds of functions, a ribbon full of buttons that change between versions, and error messages like #N/A, #VALUE! and #REF! that don't tell you what went wrong.
The usual way to learn Excel is to search, open a tutorial or a forum thread, and then try to map someone else's example onto your own data. Their columns are different. Their Excel looks different. The video skips the step you were stuck on. You lose twenty minutes on something that should take one.
What actually works is what you get from a patient colleague sitting next to you: you point at your screen, ask "why is this wrong?", and they show you on your sheet. That is what Orbo is for.
What Orbo does in Excel
Orbo is an AI voice assistant for Windows that lives beside your cursor. It is not an Excel add-in and you don't install anything inside Excel. When you ask a question, Orbo takes a screenshot of the screen you are on, reads the sheet the way you see it, and answers about exactly that. Because it works from the screen, it helps the same way in Microsoft 365, Excel 2016 or 2019, Excel for the web, and even Google Sheets.
In Excel, Orbo can help in four ways, and you choose how much you want to do yourself:
- Explain. Ask what a formula does, what a feature is for, or why a cell shows an error. Orbo answers out loud and in a small card next to your cursor.
- Show. Orbo draws circles, arrows and numbered steps right on top of Excel, so you can see which tab, button or cell it means.
- Guide. In Guided mode Orbo shows each click and keystroke on a see-through overlay and waits for you to do it. This is the best way to learn Excel, because your hands learn the steps too.
- Do it for you. In Automatic mode Orbo moves the mouse and types until the task is done, while you watch. Press Esc to stop it at any moment.
That mix is what makes Orbo different from a chatbot in a browser tab. You never copy and paste your data into a chat window, and you never have to describe your spreadsheet in words. You just ask.
Example: remove duplicates from a table
Duplicate rows are one of the most common Excel problems: an export ran twice, two lists were pasted together, or the same customer was entered by two people. Excel has a Remove Duplicates button, but it is tucked away on the Data tab, and it is easy to pick the wrong columns and delete rows you needed.
In this recording I simply ask Orbo to remove the duplicates from my table. Orbo looks at the sheet, works out which rows repeat, and cleans up the table, explaining what it is doing along the way.
What to notice in the video:
- No menu hunting. You don't need to know that the feature is called Remove Duplicates or where it lives.
- Orbo reads the table on screen, so it knows which columns you have without you describing them.
- You can ask a follow-up straight away, for example "only treat rows as duplicates when the email matches" or "how would I do that myself next time?"
If you want to learn the steps rather than just get the result, ask Orbo to guide you instead. It will point at the Data tab, then the Remove Duplicates button, then the right checkboxes, and wait for you to click each one.
Example: find out why a value is wrong
The second most common Excel question is some version of "why is this number wrong?" A total is too high, an average looks off, or a lookup returns the wrong row. The cause is usually small: a range that stops one row short, a relative reference that shifted when the formula was copied, a number stored as text, or a hidden row being counted.
Finding that by hand means clicking into the formula, tracing each reference, and checking the cells one by one. Here I ask Orbo to check why a value is not correct. It reads the formula and the cells it depends on, finds the mistake, and explains how to fix it.
This is where an AI tutor for Excel saves the most time. You don't need to know the name of the problem to search for it. You point at the cell and ask. And because Orbo explains why the value was wrong, you learn to spot the same mistake on your own next time.
How to use Orbo with Excel
Getting started takes about two minutes:
- Install Orbo. Download the Windows app from heyorbo.com and sign in with Google. No admin rights are needed.
- Open your workbook in Excel as you normally would.
- Double-tap Alt and ask. Speak naturally: "how do I make a drop-down list in this column?" The orb appears beside your cursor and starts working.
- Point at the problem if it helps. Hold Ctrl+Alt, circle a cell or a chart on screen, and ask about it.
- Choose how to finish. Read the answer, follow the drawn steps, let Orbo guide you click by click, or ask it to just do it.
Tip: when you are learning, ask "guide me" or "show me how". When you are busy, ask "do it for me". Both are fine, and you can switch any time.
Things you can ask Orbo in Excel
If you can say it, you can ask it. Here are real questions people use when they learn Excel with AI. Notice that none of them need Excel vocabulary.
Formulas
- “Write a formula that adds up sales only for the East region.”
- “Explain this XLOOKUP to me like I'm new to Excel.”
- “Why does this VLOOKUP return #N/A?”
- “Turn this nested IF into something easier to read.”
Cleaning data
- “Remove duplicate rows from this table.”
- “Split the full names in column A into first and last name.”
- “Trim the extra spaces from these product codes.”
- “Change these text dates into real dates.”
Analysis and charts
- “Make a pivot table of revenue by month and region.”
- “Highlight every order above $1,000 in green.”
- “Which product sold the most last quarter?”
- “Add a line chart of this column and title it.”
Finding your way around
- “Where is the Freeze Panes button?”
- “How do I lock this cell so the formula doesn't shift?”
- “Show me how to sort by two columns.”
- “How do I protect this sheet with a password?”
A learning path for Excel with AI
You don't need a course to get good at Excel. You need real work and fast answers. Here is a path that works well with Orbo, from your first sheet to confident analysis:
1. Excel basics for beginners
Learn to move around, select ranges, format numbers as currency or dates, and use SUM, AVERAGE, MIN and MAX. Ask Orbo "guide me" for each one so you do the clicks yourself.
2. Everyday formulas
Next come IF, COUNTIF, SUMIFS and text functions like TRIM, LEFT and TEXTSPLIT. Ask Orbo to write a formula, then ask it to explain each part. Learn absolute references ($A$1) the first time a copied formula breaks: it is easier to remember with your own example in front of you.
3. Lookups and clean data
XLOOKUP (or VLOOKUP and INDEX/MATCH in older versions), Remove Duplicates, Text to Columns, data validation drop-downs and Excel tables. These are where most real-world spreadsheet time goes.
4. Analysis and reporting
Pivot tables, conditional formatting, charts, and finally dynamic arrays like FILTER, SORT and UNIQUE. Ask Orbo what question you want answered ("which region grew fastest?") and let it suggest the right tool.
At every stage, the habit that makes you better is the same: when something surprises you, ask why. With Orbo that question costs you two taps of Alt.
Orbo vs. tutorials, forums and chatbots
There are many ways to get Excel help. Here is how they compare when you are stuck on a real spreadsheet:
| Tutorials and videos | Chatbot in a browser | Orbo | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knows your sheet | No, uses its own example | Only what you paste or describe | Yes, reads your screen |
| Shows where to click | In someone else's Excel | No | Draws on your screen |
| Step-by-step practice | Pause and rewind | Text instructions | Guided mode, click by click |
| Can do the task | No | No | Yes, in Automatic mode |
| How you ask | Search and scroll | Type | Speak, or circle and ask |
Tutorials are still great for going deep on one topic. But for the everyday moment of "I'm stuck, how do I do this?", an Excel AI assistant that sees your screen gets you unstuck faster and teaches you something while it does.
FAQ: learning Excel with AI
Start learning Excel by asking
Whether you are opening Excel for the first time or you have a report due in an hour, the fastest way to learn Excel is to ask about the sheet in front of you. Install Orbo, open a workbook, double-tap Alt, and ask your first question.