What 2025 Taught Us About Excel AI and Where Financial Modeling Is Heading in 2026

2025 has been an amazing year for Financial Modeler's Corner. A lot of great episodes. We did roughly 50 new episodes. We had many great guests on from all over the globe. Now what I want to do is I want to recap what were some of the top episodes we had. In addition to that, we introduced a new series called the Mod Squad. We talked about and tested different AI tools to give you an idea of what they could do, where they were good. The key takeaway from that series was so those who will benefit most from AI are those who know Excel and modeling really well. Microsoft continues to lean heavily into AI and so modelers of the future, especially with AI coming, will need to focus more on strategic thinking, interpretation and clear communication. How companies are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars by learning Power Query. Many analysts spend 80% of their time cleaning data and Power Query can automate it. So what are some of the new things in Excel? What do they mean for modelers? So I want to run through a few of them. The first is Foreigner is the world's premier modeling podcast. It is brought to you by Financial Modeling Institute, the world's leading financial modeling accreditation organization. Hello and welcome to another episode of Financial Modeler's Corner where we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling. The Financial Modeler's Corner is sponsored by Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling and that's why I earned the Advanced Financial Modeler. And I plan on earning the Chartered Financial Modeler again. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst and I'm thrilled to be here with you for the special end of year 2026 kickoff episode. It's the end of the year today as I'm recording this. This will be released in early 2026. You know, 2025 has been an amazing year for Financial Modelers Corner. A lot of great episodes and a new series that we introduced. So first I just want to talk about a little bit about the year we did roughly 50 new episodes in 2025. We had many great guests on from all over the globe. We had many different countries. We had people that were specialists in Excel, specialists in modeling, people talking AI, three statements, real estate, all different areas of modeling. In addition to that, we introduced a new series called the Mod Squad. The Mod Squad is a series that will be ongoing by In Schnorr and Giles Mellow. Ian is the Executive Director of the Financial Modeling Institute and Giles runs Full Stack Modelers, a Microsoft MVP and Excel esports aficionado. And he's also a master financial modeler. So the two of them are both global experts in modeling. And we talked about and tested different AI tools to give you an idea of what they could do, where they were good, how to think about them. We'll continue to release monthly episodes of the Mod squad in in 2026 as we continue to share our take and our learnings about financial modeling and AI. The key takeaway from that series was Vibe working as it's been coded, kind of like Vibe coding is early. It's where vibe coding was 18 months ago. And it can make you better in Excel. It can help you be faster with your models. But more than anything, it's a magnifier. It's going to magnify if you don't know what you're doing. If you know what you're doing well, it's going to magnify that. So those who will benefit most from AI are those who know Excel and modeling really well. That was our key takeaway from the series and we'll continue to test and learn and bring you additional tools. Next, let's want to talk a little bit about Excel. Obviously, when we talk financial modeling, some of the most interesting episodes we had, in fact, the number one episode from a Microsoft mvp, John Ankompora, where we talk quite, quite a bit about Excel. So what are some of the new things in Excel? What do they mean for modelers? So I want to run through a few of them. The first is the co pilot function. What the co pilot function is, is the copilot function allows you to type the word copilot and then in parentheses, tell it what you want it to find using generative AI and it will return an answer. You can even mix it with data you have in your grid and have it run against that. So you could return the top 10 cities in the US or, you know, the top countries in the world or whatever it might be, or classify some data. Very unique function in that it's probabilistic and so you could get different answers every time. You have to be very careful where you use it. Something I wouldn't see much used in modeling, but unique the next one, and I know it drives a lot of modelers crazy, is the copilot autocomplete. And so what that is is you start typing a function like you start typing an xlookup and it automatically assumes what you're wanting to look up and finishes the formula for you. And you can scroll through different options of what it thinks you Want can be incredibly helpful in certain situations. Can also be quite annoying. I know a lot of people that turn it off, but that's the next one. Then there's Excel's agent that came out this year and that's really been what I'll call kind of groundbreaking. And in that it now allows you to vibe work where you just type something and Excel using generative AI will then build whatever you asked it to do. If you want more on this, then watch the mod squad. I talk about this in depth, but I'm very excited for Excel Agent Clean Data. This is what we call intelligent data cleaning. It uses AI to clean up your data. See, as you can see, the first four are all AI mentioned, others that came out as focus cells and I'm sure there were some others. Some may have been 2024 and it's been so rapid and so changing, but those are some I know of. So you know Microsoft continues to lean heavily into AI and bringing new AI functions for better or worse. It's a huge push and we will see a lot more of that as my guess in 2026 as Microsoft continues to develop Excel and it continues to be the premier spreadsheet in the world. All right, so that's a little bit on excel in 2025. Some other things, you know, one big event was the Microsoft Excel World Championship. I went this year in Vegas in the beginning of December. Incredible event. Probably my favorite part, and I think many people's was seeing Dim early dermied early win. So Dim competes every year. He's one of the most generous competitors. He's always helping others, always sharing his knowledge. He's a Microsoft mvp. He's been competing for years and the last few years he's come up just short of winning it all. This year he was at the top of his game all three rounds. The semifinal to get through to the final. The two final rounds, he scored a perfect score, a 1250. He finished early, so he had known he had won. Just amazing to watch. He performed at the top of his game. It was really cool to see and Microsoft has really leaned into the event. The number of people attending, the excitement continues to grow and so they're doing a better and better job of that event. One Giles Mel is one of the announcers for that. He does a great job there and I know he'll continue to be involved. So it's just a fabulous, exciting year for that and for the event and if you ever get a chance, highly encourage you to attend it if you want to meet a lot of Excel people and have fun. So that was a fun event. Now what I want to do is I want to recap what were some of the top episodes we had in 2025 and then I'll talk a little bit about 2026 and we'll wrap this up. So this will be a relatively short episode, but the number one most listened episode audio that is. So this doesn't include like YouTube videos but just talking audio. The number one most listened to episode was how finance professionals can grow with Excel, avoid automation traps and build a brand new With John Ankompora if anyone knows John Ankompora, he's a fabulous Microsoft mvp. Shares a ton of stuff about Excel through his website and so he shared a few things and I just want to recap some of them. I really liked his thoughts on legacy thinking. He says when building financial models, consider the legacy you're leaving behind. Future users will inherit your work and either praise or curse your name, depending on how complex and maintainable you make it. So right? The less complex and the more maintainable, the more likely they are to praise your name. The more complex and less maintainable, more likely they are to curse your name. So we talk about legacy thinking and the legacy you're leaving. They said user involvement is critical. The more you involve end users in the model development process, the more likely they are to adopt and use the final product. Don't spend months building in isolation only to discover missing features. Not surprising. So this is so true with so many things. But in modeling, especially if someone's going to inherit or use the model after, make sure you involve them. And then he emphasized again, simplicity over complexity. While my background is in fpa, I am also passionate about financial modeling. Like many financial modelers, I was self taught. Then I discovered the Financial Modeling Institute, the organization that offers the Advanced Financial Modeler program. I am a proud holder of the afm. Preparing for the AFM exam made me a better modeler. If you want to improve your modeling skills, I recommend the AFM Program Podcast. Listeners say save 15% on the AFM program. Just use Code podcast. He says complexity can backfire by making you indispensable in ways that hurt your career growth. Oh, we have to have this person here to maintain this VBA model or this complex formula. There often may be a simpler way. So he mentions that. And then he talked about one of my favorite the Power Query Revolution. So companies are saving hundreds of thousands of dollars by learning Power Query. Many analysts spend 80% of their time cleaning Data and Power Qu Query can automate it if you have to update models regularly, learn Power Query and then he talked about building an online business and he he mentioned something that is so often said, but I don't think often recognized success rarely happens overnight. John's journey from hobby blog to full time business took six to seven years of consistent content creation and audience building was definitely not an overnight success. And now he has a very successful business. So that was the most popular episode of the year. Number two, and this is not surprising, was about AI. So Kenny Whitelaw Jones, early in the year did a survey about how financial modelers are using copilot in ChatGPT. Now I think some of this is outdated. Now it just shows how quick financial modeling and AI is moving. But we'll just share a few highlights for his so we talk about AI and we talk a lot about project finance. So he runs Gridlines, which is a project finance modeling company. So when we did this at the beginning of the year, it says 75% of modelers expect AI to significantly impact financial modeling. This was one of the key takeaways, but only 10% are using it systematically. Now among modelers, there's a higher use of copilot than ChatGPT due to workflow integration. So no surprise there. Then we talked about dynamic arrays. He said they're great, but they're not always practical for complex project finance models, which is something we talked a lot about throughout the year. They're just not quite ready there for the average builder to build their full whole model dynamically. And then he says, you know, a few things he shared about AI is he thinks it can transform the model audit process by reading contracts recommending modeling approaches. I also know in Bennett talked about how it could help a lot with the early process of helping with scoping. And then he shared how he's seeing that modeling today requires a lot more of soft skills and business understanding. It goes well beyond technical expertise. He even said in Project finance, typically only 10% of your time is spent building the model. 90% is on using them, using those models and what you've learned for commercial negotiations. And so modelers of the future, especially with AI coming, will need to focus more on strategic thinking, interpretation and clear communication. So that was the second most listened episode with Kenny Whitelaw Jones. Number three was how to simplify complex financial models and save time with Scott Powell. Scott Powell is one of the founders of CF Institute and an instructor. And so one of the first key takeaways he kind of shared was Start with the end in mind. Don't jump into building models immediately. Think about stakeholders, deliverables and outputs. First draw out your model structure on paper before opening Excel. Then we talked about one of my favorite subjects. I often say simple is hard, complex is easy. But he used the term simplify, simplify, simplify. Over complication often doesn't impact decision making. So don't do it. You can make a model look more precise by adding hundreds, rows and columns, but if it doesn't affect the decision, why do it? So focus on what's needed for the decision. He talked about the importance of documenting everything from color code, you know, comments, clear documentation throughout. And then he said which is a theme. We talked about it under Kenny. We'll talk about it again. Soft skills set you apart. Technical skills are the baseline, but communication, storytelling and stakeholder management are what differentiate top performers in finance. He mentioned you should be careful come back to the over complication with advanced features. Use them judiciously. You know, ask yourself if it's really needed or if there's a simple way you could do. When it came to learning Excel and with all the changes making, he said, focus your learning. Identify the areas that are going to help you most. Is it power query? Is it Python? Is it power bi? Is it dynamic arrays? And focus on learning them. Not everything and then learn incrementally. His favorite recommendation is hey, take 15 minutes and learn one thing every day. Bad financial models can lead to bad decisions or worse. So how do you minimize the risk of a bad model? You make sure sure the models you build are great. Financial Modeling Institute developed the Advanced Financial Modeler Accreditation Program to help modelers like you. The AFM program offers a step by step approach to building world class financial models. The program ensures that you know the best practices in model design and strategic structure and will help you brush up on your Excel and accounting skills too. Be the one on your team to build great models if you want to impress your boss and your clients. Get AFM accredited podcast listeners save 15 on the AFM program. Just use code podcast@fminstitute.com podcast and then last he talked about his love of teaching and he said the best teachers and the teacher he tries to be are those that are service oriented. When creating courses or training. Put the leader's needs front and center, not your desire to show off technical skills. All right, so that was a little bit of Scott Powell. You can re listen to that episode how to Simplify Complex Financial Models and Save Time with Scott Powell Number four and this is one of my favorites. And this was an episode, I think we reran this episode. We had actually recorded it previously but three statement modeling for FP and a pros to avoid complex builds and forecast errors with Chris Riley. Anyone knows Chris Reilly knows I love the work he does. He's great with his financial modeling education website. He talks a lot about understanding and building three statement models. And we went deep on the whole cash flow and building a three statement model. And he mentioned his preference for three statement models is a vertical model where they're stacked on top of each other versus horizontally likes it in one sheet. He talked a lot about the importance of really understanding the corkscrew or as he called the base method where you have a beginning line and then you have your additions, your subtraction and your ending. And in the next column your ending becomes the beginning and then you got your ending at the end and then the next column again it's the beginning. So you go basically go beginning, ending, ending, to the next column, beginning, ending, to the next column beginning. And that's why it's a corkscrew. It just rotates through like a corkscrew. You can see it kind of spinning there. So we talked a lot about that, how great that is for modeling working capital accounts. We talked about the importance of error checking simplicity. Once again we see that and then we got a little bit into cash flow. And something he said is the direct method can serve as a valuable double check for model integrity. So often you're going to do it indirect but use the direct as well if you have the data. And then he talked about how you know when you're building financial models, most models should be really simple. You only need a few basic formulas, you know, maybe some more advanced like an index match for data aggregation. But really formulas you need for modeling is pretty simple. Number five was master the secret for building better financial models with the co founder of CFI SO Corporate Finance Institute Tim Vapond. He first we spent a lot of time talking about strategy and he mentioned how strategy is crucial for financial modeling, that modelers must align the model with the company strategy and objectives to be truly useful. So if you don't think about strategy and don't align what you're doing with strategy, you're going to miss. And then we talk about what strategy is. We talked about how strategy involves making trade offs and closing doors. You can't pursue every opportunity. You have to pick and choose what makes the most sense for your business. Then we talked about career growth and Tim shared something he learned that I really liked. He called it skill stacking, how it can significantly advance your career. There's a lot of people that are really good at accounting, are really good at Excel or really good at Power bi. But skills Tacking says I'm going to become, you know, top 5, 10% at Excel and data storytelling and then maybe business partnering. But you have two or three skills that you really have honed and stood out. So now you can stack a couple skills on top of each other. Now you might only be, you know, competing against a 1% in that area. When people are looking for that combo of where you've skill stacked, you're going to stand out. So you've reduced the competition for those areas. And then he mentioned about don't take shortcuts. Even when it's two in the morning you're trying to finish, don't do it. It's going to come back to bite you. It's going to backfire. And he shared some stories about how happened for him. And then one thing I really like is scenarios. I'm a big believer of scenarios and saying, hey, scenarios are about situations, not just a bunch of numbers. And so he said scenarios and financial models should be grounded in strategy, not just arbitrary number changes. And then he gave a tip for one of the best ways to improve your modeling skills. He said reverse Engineer. Other people's models can be one of the best ways to improve modeling skills. So those were the top five episodes. I wanted to recap those next. I just want to talk a little bit about what's coming in 2026. In 2026 we're going to continue to the Mod Squad. They will be a month. It'll be a monthly series within and Giles where we continue to talk about AI. We'll continue to bring you guests. We may not do as many episodes as we did in 2025. We're looking to scale it back a little bit. But we will continue to bring you some of the best modelers in the world. And, and what I'd love to know is, is there a subject, a topic, an area you'd like me to cover, a guest you want me to have on? If there is, then please reach out. And last but not least, just a reminder, you know, Financial Modeling Institute is a great organization and if you want to level up your modeling game, consider taking the advanced financial model. Or if you take the advanced considered, the Chartered really is worth it. It's one of the best organizations out there. So on that note, I want to thank everybody for listening to the show. I'm really excited for the new year. Encourage you to go back, maybe listen to a couple episodes. You didn't get a chance. It's in this top five. Or watch the Mod Squad. It's a great series about AI. An exciting time. Modeling continues to grow and develop. What a great area to be in, to work in, to be able to build financial models. So I look forward to bringing you many more great interviews and guests in 2026. Thanks for joining me. Financial Modeler's Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and it made me a better financial modeler. What are you waiting for? Visit fmi@www.fminstitute.com com podcast and use code podcast to save 15% when you enroll in one of the accreditations today.