Announcing o11's backing from Y Combinator.
Shortcut AI vs o11: The Best AI for Excel Power Users?
If you are looking for “AI for Excel,” you have likely seen Shortcut AI. It’s a powerful platform that aims to automate 90% of spreadsheet work with a “superhuman” agent.
But for enterprise professionals—Investment Bankers, PE Associates, and Strategy Consultants—the question is: does Shortcut solve the core workflow, or just the spreadsheet?
Shortcut AI: The “Superhuman” Agent
Shortcut AI is more than an add-in; it’s a turbocharged spreadsheet platform that integrates an AI agent directly into the interface.
- Speed & Performance: It claims an 89% win rate against human analysts from top firms and can complete knowledge tasks 10x faster.
- Natural Language prompts: You can tell it to “Build me a P&L for last year” or “Forecast next quarter revenue,” and it executes the steps dynamically.
- Auditing: It tracks every edit and cites sources, which is great for transparency.
- The Catch: Users have noted it can be “sloppy with formatting” on presentation-heavy files and can sometimes be slow with smaller datasets compared to its high-volume performance.
o11: The Native Workspace Layer
o11 matching the generative power of Shortcut but keeps you inside your existing, professional ecosystem with 100% fidelity.
- Deep M365 Integration: Shortcut is a separate platform where you import/export Excel files. o11 is a native layer that lives inside your existing SharePoint and M365 environment.
- Presentation Logic: o11 understands that an analysis in Excel is useless if it can’t be presented. It is the only tool that bridges the gap between your data models and your PowerPoint decks natively.
- Enterprise-Grade Infrastructure: o11 focuses on “Local-First” architecture, ensuring that the same high-security standards required by top-tier financial firms are met by design.
Comparison table
| Feature | Shortcut AI | o11 |
|---|---|---|
| Formula Gen | Excellent | Excellent |
| Direct File Edit | Platform-based | Native Excel Layer |
| Excel to PPT Link | Manual Export | Native & Live |
| Audit Trails | High | High + Security First |
Verdict
If you want to move your workflow to a new, AI-first spreadsheet platform for rapid task automation, Shortcut AI is a powerful choice.
If you are a professional who needs to maintain perfect Excel formatting while staying deeply synced with your PowerPoint and Word deliverables, o11 is the only solution that covers the entire workspace.
