Why AI Can’t Replace Excel—And How to Make Them Work Together

AI is revolutionizing application development, particularly in creating dynamic, user-friendly interfaces and flexible workflows faster than ever before.

But what happens when your application relies on more than just simple logic?

What about the complex calculations core to finance, insurance, and banking – the kind currently residing in your critical Excel spreadsheets?

The AI Calculation Gap

When it comes to complex, multi-step calculations—think hundreds or even thousands of interrelated formulas—AI hits its limits.

Direct Calculation Fails

Sure, some models can handle basic math or simple logic. But ask them to execute an enterprise-grade financial model, and the cracks start to show. Accuracy drops. Consistency wavers. You just can’t trust the result.

AI Code Generation is Impractical

You might try a different route: having AI write the calculation code during development based on descriptions. But explaining all the intricacies of a deeply layered model to an AI is like teaching someone chess by describing every possible game state in words. It’s error-prone, hard to validate, and nearly impossible for the business expert to validate effectively.

Trying to force AI to replicate your spreadsheet’s logic is a Sisyphean task.

And worse, it ignores something critical: the valuable, validated intellectual property your team already built and trusts.

The Smarter Stack: AI + Excel, Together

There's a powerful, pragmatic alternative: combine the strengths of AI with the proven calculation power of your existing Excel models, unlocked by Coherent Spark.

Don't think of it as AI versus Excel, but as a strategic partnership.

Use each technology for what it does best:

• AI: Builds intuitive user interfaces, manages workflows, handles user interactions.
  
  
• Excel + Spark: Executes the complex, validated calculations your business relies on.

Coherent Spark makes this connection seamless.

It takes your existing Excel files – the formulas, logic, and data structure – and automatically transforms them into secure, high-performance API services. Spark generates standard OpenAPI documentation, allowing your AI application (or any app) to easily call upon the spreadsheet's logic.

How It Works: Simple & Powerful

1. Point Spark to your Excel file.
   
   
2. Spark compiles the logic into optimized, callable code - documented in a way that AI development tools can directly consume.
   
   
3. Your AI front-end makes a simple API request when it needs a calculation performed. Spark executes the logic instantly and returns the precise result.

It’s a simple interaction pattern. But the impact is huge.

What You Gain from the AI + Excel Approach

This synergistic approach delivers significant advantages:

• Faster Time-to-Market: Leverage AI's speed for UI development combined with Spark's instant conversion of existing, complex logic. Build sophisticated apps faster.
  
  
• Guaranteed Accuracy: Ground your applications in the proven, audited logic from your trusted spreadsheets. Eliminate AI calculation errors.
  
  
• Leverage Existing Assets: Turn your Excel files (your IP) and your subject matter experts (your talent) into active components of your modern development strategy. Experts can maintain logic in Excel; Spark deploys the updates.
  
  
• Reduced Development Costs: Avoid lengthy, risky efforts to manually recode or teach AI complex calculations.
  
  
• Drive Innovation: Rapidly prototype and deploy new ideas, knowing the calculation engine is reliable and ready.

You Already Have the Model. Now You Have the Engine.

You don’t have to teach AI to calculate. You don’t have to rewrite the logic your team already trusts. And you don’t have to choose between flexibility and fidelity.

Let AI shine at what it does best: building intuitive, dynamic user experiences — fast.

Coherent Spark fills in the rest — executing the complex, validated logic behind the scenes, straight from your Excel models.

Together, they make a powerful stack: fast to build, easy to scale, and grounded in the logic your business already knows inside and out.

You bring the spreadsheet. AI brings the experience.

Coherent Spark brings it all together.

Ready to connect your AI strategy to your core business logic?