Excel: Why a 40-Year-Old Tool Still Dominates the Workplace

Four decades after its launch, Microsoft Excel remains deeply embedded in working life. Despite rapid advances in automation and artificial intelligence, the spreadsheet software continues to underpin everything from budgets to business planning, raising questions about why it has proved so hard to replace.
Excel’s appeal is rooted in familiarity and convenience. It is widely taught alongside Word and PowerPoint, and for many workers it is the first tool they learn to use with data. Research suggests two-thirds of office employees open Excel at least once an hour, reflecting how central it remains to daily tasks.
For many uses, its popularity is justified. “If you want to explore a small dataset, test an idea or create a quick chart, Excel is still very effective,” says Tom Wilkie, chief technology officer at data visualization firm Grafana.
Concerns emerge, however, when spreadsheets are used as informal data-processing systems rather than analytical tools. Professor Mark Whitehorn, emeritus professor of analytics at the University of Dundee, points to widespread reliance on complex spreadsheets built around macros that are poorly documented and rarely centrally controlled.
“When those systems break, or the people who created them leave, organizations can struggle to understand how critical decisions are being made,” he says. This can make data harder to secure, harder to audit and more difficult to integrate into modern digital platforms, including AI systems.
Recent cases have highlighted the risks. In New Zealand, Excel was revealed to be the primary tool for managing health system finances, while in the UK spreadsheet errors have contributed to recruitment failures and data breaches.
Despite these issues, replacing Excel is not straightforward. Efforts to move staff onto alternative platforms often meet resistance, reflecting both habit and a sense of personal control over data.
Excel is unlikely to disappear. But as organizations become more data-driven, its role is increasingly under scrutiny—not because it no longer works, but because its limitations are becoming harder to ignore.