Towards the end of each month, Microsoft recaps all the features it added during the past four weeks. While it published a roundup for November 2025, it did not do the same for December 2025, likely because of the holiday season. Now that is over, Microsoft is now back with a roundup for January 2026.
During the first month of the year, Excel for Windows and Mac gained Agent Mode. We talked about this yesterday when we detailed how customers can now use natural language, outcome-based prompts to have Copilot build complex solutions on your behalf.
Meanwhile, Excel for web received the ability to fully leverage Power Query to import and edit data. You can access this service using the Data > Get Data interface, from where you can pull from various sources after authentication. This feature may seem very familiar to Power BI Desktop customers and those who use it in Excel for Windows, but you do need an enterprise or business subscription in order to leverage the full experience on the web.
Next, Excel for Windows netted two features. The first is new Import functions that allow you to extract data from a .txt or .csv file without using Power Query at all. The other is more descriptive error cards, which should make debugging a lot easier. However, keep in mind that both these capabilities are available only to Insiders for now.
Finally, Excel received one more feature across Windows, Mac, and the web. It allows them to use Office Scripts to save a worksheet as a PDF and email it to either yourself or your team. Microsoft has tagged this as "#FIA" (Feedback in Action), indicating that this capability was heavily requested by Excel customers.
These past few weeks have been rather exciting for Excel users, with customers receiving a well-rounded set of features. It"ll be interesting to see what"s next in February 2026.