When AI makes Excel harder, not easier
Many of us already suspect it: AI can add complexity instead of removing it. The old “tech productivity paradox” is back. Poor adoption of AI is slowing teams down, not speeding them up and more reports are emerging.
While the AI hype train is on the move, trying to be a voice of reason in the office is difficult. Explaining to colleagues why current AI can make everyday spreadsheets worse is difficult—until you see it happen and a concrete example illustrates the obvious:
At Dashflow, we explored this issue with a simple case study: we built a 5-year cashflow for Microsoft Excel (purchase, rent, exit yield and added a rent review). Within minutes, ChatGPT 5 turned straightforward model requests into a thicket of formulas (nested IFs, OFFSETs, date logic, rent review triggers). A single cell was carrying multiple layers of logic— and became completely unreadable as the model was further refined and ‘improved’.
Business teams need reliable, user-friendly, transparent and trustworthy cash flow communication to close institutional deals and pass them by investment committees. Current ChatGPT outputs for Excel lack simple and common sense layouts which professional investors can double-check, read and inspect at will.
Convenience gives way to complexity
A junior analyst would normally write:
=SUM(C18:D18)Clean, legible, and instantly understood by everyone from a graduate trainee to a Blackstone or Blackrock VP. Common-sense legibility is how institutional deals actually get shared, checked, and approved—analysts and executives speaking the same financial-Excel language.
By contrast, AI produced:
=IF(ROW()-14=1,-$B$2,IF(ROW()-14<=$B$5*$B$6,IF(ROW()-14=$B$5*$B$6, SUM($C18:$D18)+$B$3, SUM($C18:$D18)),""))Clever? Maybe. Useful? Not at all. It hides assumptions, slows audits, and drains analyst productivity. It appears to be devoid of anything resembling minimum human intuition.
The three dangers for CRE teams
- Audit risk – when core assumptions are buried in formulas, results can’t be validated.
- Transparency gap – if stakeholders can’t interrogate the numbers, they stop trusting them.
- Productivity drag – analysts are forced to spend time untangling formulas instead of analysing deals, driving unnecessary bottlenecks at the team’s expense.
Ironically, AI writes formulas fast – but it accelerates the wrong kind of complexity.
The paradox of AI in spreadsheets
Ironically, AI writes formulas fast – but it accelerates the wrong kind of complexity. Best practice in financial modelling has always been simple:
- Keep each cell clear.
- Organise logic both inside and outside each cell (transparent rows and columns).
- Let totals be totals!
Takeaway for CRE executives
Spreadsheets will remain central to due diligence and the execution of billions of dollars of CRE transactions. But clarity always beats cleverness. AI can draft, but it can’t yet deliver the trust and simplicity investors and experienced professionals demand.
This is one of the reasons why Dashflow remains the award-winning market leader in producing auditable, transparent, and trustworthy Excel files humans can use — ready to be shared instantly between Principals and Advisors’ analysts. No black boxes, no hidden traps, just models that build collegiate and client confidence to support the closing of deals.
For your team’s Continued Professional Development, get in touch to arrange a CPD seminar on AI and Excel in CRE: the benefits, the pitfalls, and how to keep trust intact.