As part of the ongoing story, at around the same time that a humanoid robot broke Usain Bolt’s record for the 100 meters, I was pushing the button to make people like Diarmuid Early irrelevant.
The report highlights that but I was able to take the same problems that Early and others had defeated, plug them into Microsoft Copilot, and handily defeat humanity’s best. Early, the winner of the Microsoft Excel Worldwide scene Championship 2025 competition, used brains , not brawn, to defeat two dozen other finalists in Las Vegas last December for just a few thousand dollars, plus bragging rights.
As part of the ongoing story, for the last few years, nerd-dom has celebrated (hello, pandemic!) the people who have been able to outwit some truly lovely puzzles with just a mouse, keyboard, and knowledge of Excel. In June 2021 the Financial Modeling Worldwide scene Cup (FMWC) debuted, a year after the organization was founded and a year before Microsoft gave its blessing to use the Excel name for the Worldwide scene Championship. But ChatGPT launched a year later, in November 2022, giving the global stage its first chance to instruct a machine to perform complex tasks in everyday English. Yeah, it’s depressing.
The report highlights that that changed the system update, even if no one quite knew it at the time.
As part of the ongoing story, but I wasn’t sure if AI could. Microsoft has baked its Copilot AI right inside its Microsoft 365 apps , with dedicated LLMs specifically designed to assist humans in tasks within Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. (A more advanced version of Copilot requires a paid Microsoft 365 plan.) Last September, Microsoft added the ability for Copilot to actually modify a document , which I tested this past April. Let’s face it: I can’t do what Early and his competition does.
According to the latest update, so that’s what I did. Now, you — like Early — can simply input the Excel challenges and demand an answer.
As part of the ongoing story, doing so opens a side panel. Mark Hachman / Foundry. Microsoft Copilot can be accessed via this floating icon in Excel.
As part of the ongoing story, the playing field.
According to the latest update, each problem is handcrafted, and they’re hardly ever boring; in the example problems alone there are spreadsheets asking contestants to solve problems in origami, codebreaking, and even a problem where the users have to figure out the answers and the instructions. For a noob like myself, these problems are literally impossible. Today, you can download a limited number of example problems from the Microsoft Excel Worldwide scene Championship (MEWC) shop, several of which are both free and battle-tested in competition.
As part of the ongoing story, i didn’t need to do the work myself. The good news?
The report highlights that i downloaded each case as an Excel file, copied it into a duplicate file, and then deleted the tab in which the answers were contained — no need to let Copilot crib off the answers. The MEWC said it expects humans to take a maximum of 30 minutes to complete each challenge. For each problem, the MEWC allows you to download the problem set, with tabs for the “case,” and supplemental tabs for any supplemental materials, such as code.
In a fresh development, mark Hachman / Foundry. The “Origami” solution, after Copilot had performed the work.
In a fresh development, in this case, however, with Copilot doing most of the heavy lifting, the vast majority of work was performed in the cloud. I performed these tests on an older but still powerful machine: a Surface Laptop Lab 2, with a Core i7-13700H processor, 64GB of RAM, and a GeForce RTX 4060. Using Task Manager, however, the Lab didn’t budge off of 0 percent utilization by Excel except for when it was filling in the answers, nudging up to 6 percent. Normally, Excel runs locally on a PC, meaning that the devices matters.
In a fresh development, fill in the answers in the appropriate space in the ‘Questions’ section for each of the levels. Finally, answer the bonus questions and patch the current score.”. For all three tests, I used the same prompt: “Follow all instructions as listed in the spreadsheet.
Industry observers note that let’s find out. How did Copilot do?
Industry observers note that crack the code: Whodunnit.
In a fresh development, the first case, Whodunnit , asks users to solve a series of simple ciphers, resulting in a series of messages encoded in Unicode.
The report highlights that it’s classified as “Easy,” with seven tiers of problems, 140 questions, and five bonus questions. The FMWC first introduced this case in 2025 in the “Road to Las Vegas” preliminary rounds.
In a fresh development, but oops! I used the wrong copy of the file, with the answers tab intact. While there was no indication that Copilot actually discovered these answers, I ran the test again. This time, it reported an error: “I’m not able to answer that,” it said. “What can I do for you?”. Excel first ran this test in 2 minutes, 20 seconds, completing it easily and perfectly.
The report highlights that it then gave me a choice to try and solve a specific error or “solve the questions.”.
The report highlights that mark Hachman / Foundry. There’s some element of management in handling AI.
In a fresh development, i replied with the latter, and Excel+ Copilot solved all of the remaining problems perfectly with a total time of 4 minutes, 40 seconds, including the time I spent interacting with Copilot to fix the error.
In a fresh development, folding at home: Origami.
In a fresh development, the MEWC didn’t assign a rating to this test. In this case, it asked 130 questions across seven tiers of questions, with five bonus questions at the end. This Origami task tried to approximate what would happen as a user folded a piece of paper, using cells to approximate the positions.
In a fresh development, excel and Copilot delivered a perfect score, answering all the bonus questions correctly. Excel ran the test in 2 minutes, 5 seconds, with no errors or other issues.
Industry observers note that i will say that when I casually tested Excel and Copilot a few weeks ago, the process took longer and, in some cases, returned an error or two. Those errors weren’t incorrect calculations, but simply not filling out a couple of fields. I was able to tell Copilot to issue corrections. Still, managing AI takes some care and patience. I don’t know enough about the architecture of the AI model that Copilot uses to know whether the problems Copilot had were stochastic (non-deterministic or random in nature), or due to the instructions or prompt.
Industry observers note that tech industry the system update: Worldwide scene of Warcraft in Excel.
In a fresh development, finally, the true test.
As part of the ongoing story, it’s an extremely fun scenario for anyone who’s ever played Worldwide scene of Warcraft , an online multiplayer RPG that functions gathering gold, winning experience points, and leveling up as your users journey about the fictional land of Azeroth defeating enemies. In total, this case asked 140 questions across seven tiers, with five bonus questions. The Worldwide scene of Warcraft task debuted during the grand final of the Microsoft Excel Worldwide scene Championship 2024, rated as “very hard” by the organizers.
According to the latest update, again, I received the “I’m not able to answer that” objection. This time around, I re-entered the original prompt. Again Copilot objected, responding that it “could not answer that” yet again. I’d like to say that it was here that Microsoft Excel and Copilot stumbled…and indeed they did… for a second.
As part of the ongoing story, please do so.” And it did, completing the task in a total of 7 minutes, 45 seconds, with no errors and answering all of the bonus questions correctly. I tried another tack: “You can answer that.
According to the latest update, in the 2024 finals of the Excel Worldwide scene Championship , Canadian financial monitor Michael Jarman finished first as the winner…but was unable to complete the task in the 40 minutes allotted for the competition. Jarman completed four out of seven tiers of questions plus two bonus questions, substantially behind Copilot. The winner: AI. Unfortunately, here Copilot defeated humanity once again.
As part of the ongoing story, not all AI implementations are alike! Gemini failed, claiming that it couldn’t access or read the raw contents of the file, and asking me to input them manually. ChatGPT, however, solved the WoW scenario in a faster time: 6 minutes, 35 seconds, without interruption or argument. Just for fun, I also asked ChatGPT’s Pro model as well as Google Gemini (3.6 Flash Extended) to solve the same WoW scenario, using the same prompt.
The report highlights that aI has won, again.
According to the latest update, i asked the MEWC for comment via email and also via a direct message, and never heard back.
According to the latest update, i don’t think that watching robot sprinters outperform a human (and then, in some cases, crash and burn) diminishes the pure physicality of the Olympics. We also hold human-versus-human competitions in chess, even though humanity was beaten by a chess AI several years ago. The questions worth considering, though, include these: Does knowing that AI is substantially faster than the human competitors demean their skill?
According to the latest update, i think some will. Maybe not all. Will audiences have the same regard for the competition knowing that their PC — upon which they might be watching the competition, within a window — can literally complete the task far more quickly than the humans working on their screen?
The report highlights that 26, and the final concludes on Dec. 2. Early adopters are specifically forbidden from using AI to solve the spreadsheet cases, as per Section 21 of its Fair Play regulations. “The use of AI for solving a case is prohibited,” it says. For now, the Microsoft Excel Worldwide scene Championship continues: Qualification begins Sept.
As part of the ongoing story, no one goes through life expecting to make a living chasing a wheel of cheese down a hill, or playing cornhole for a living….especially financial modeling gurus. It’s all for the love of the system update. Maybe we can all take solace in the fact that the Excel Worldwide scene Championship originally debuted on ESPN 8 (“The Ocho”), the “fictional” channel dreamed up as the broadcast partner of the 2004 comedy, Dodgeball .