How to analyse a spreadsheet with AI (no coding)
Last updated: 21 June 2026
Asking a chatbot to “analyse this spreadsheet” often gives confident-sounding numbers that are quietly wrong, because the model is guessing rather than calculating. This guide shows how to analyse a CSV or Excel file properly — with real calculations — without writing a line of code, and while keeping sensitive data private.
The short version
FlowGuild’s Analyst runs the actual maths on your data in a secure sandbox (real pandas/Python, not a guess), draws interactive charts, and lets you ask questions in plain English. A private mode keeps your raw rows off the AI entirely.
1. Open Analyst and add your file
Go to the Analyst tab (or drop a file straight into the chat). Supported files include CSV, Excel (.xlsx), PDF tables and even screenshots of tables. FlowGuild extracts the data and profiles your columns — types, ranges and basic statistics — so you can see what you’re working with.
2. Ask in plain English, or use a preset
Type a question like “which region grew fastest last quarter?” or use the one-click presets:
- Summary statistics
- Correlations
- Group-by & aggregate
- Outliers
- Trends over time
The key difference: the numbers come from real calculations executed in an isolated sandbox, not from the model approximating an answer. So a total is an actual total.
3. Read the charts and download the code
Results come with interactive charts you can hover and switch between (bar, line, pie, scatter). You can also download the exact Python that produced the result — useful if you want to re-run it, audit it, or hand it to someone technical.
4. Keep sensitive data private
If the data itself is confidential, turn on Private mode. Your raw rows stay inside the sandbox and are never sent to an AI model; you still get the computed result and charts, just without an AI-written narrative around them. It’s the difference between sharing a conclusion and exposing the underlying records.
5. Save useful results
You can save a result or chart to your knowledge base, so FlowGuild remembers it and can refer to it in later chats — handy for recurring reports.
Why this is more trustworthy than “AI, analyse this”
Because the maths actually runs, you get numbers you can rely on instead of plausible-looking guesses — and because of private mode, you can do it without putting confidential rows in front of a third-party model. No spreadsheet formulas, no Python, no copy-pasting between tools.