Google shares details on upcoming Sheets features that automatically clean up and complete data, through formula suggestions and more
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch :
Context & Ripple Effects
This feature lands on a decade-long runway: Google first bolted data-analysis tooling onto Sheets in 2015, then added a machine-learning-powered natural-language chart builder in 2017. The new cleanup and completion features push the same playbook from analyzing existing data to fixing and entering it.
It also follows the template Google established in Docs earlier in 2020, when autocorrect-by-default and Smart Compose brought assistive text features to paying customers — Sheets' formula suggestions apply that same assist-as-you-work model to structured data.
First-order effects
- Sheets users get formula suggestions and automatic data cleanup/completion, cutting manual formula writing and tidying directly inside the product rather than through scripts or add-ons.
Second-order effects
- Third-party cleanup utilities and Apps Scripts built to fill that gap now compete with native features — the same squeeze the add-on ecosystem faced when Forms gained templates, Apps Scripts and add-on support natively in 2016.
- With Google shutting down its Tables work-tracking tool and directing those users to export into Sheets (the December shutdown), lower-friction data entry makes Sheets a softer landing spot for displaced work-tracking workflows.
Third-order effects
- If the cadence holds — Docs getting Smart Compose in February 2020, then Workspace-wide generative AI announced across Docs, Gmail, Sheets and Slides in March 2023 — assisted data work becomes the default mode of Google's productivity suite rather than an opt-in extra, raising the baseline every rival spreadsheet must match.
The trend: Spreadsheets are being progressively converted from blank grids the user fills into systems that predict and complete entries, one shipped feature at a time.