Best AI for spreadsheets & Excel / head-to-head
Claude Opus 4.8 vs DeepSeek V4 Flashfor spreadsheets & Excel
Claude Opus 4.8 wins, 94–93
Same 12 spreadsheets & Excel tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. Claude Opus 4.8 took 4 tasks, DeepSeek V4 Flash took 2, 6 tied. Tested 13 Aug 2026.
Where they differed most
In Google Sheets, tab 'Sales' has headers in row 1: Date, Rep, Region, Amount. Write one QUERY() formula returning total Amount per Rep for the North region only, sorted highest first. Return only the formula.
``` =QUERY(Sales!A:D, "SELECT B, SUM(D) WHERE C = 'North' GROUP BY B ORDER BY SUM(D) DESC LABEL SUM(D) 'Total Amount'", 1) ```
=QUERY('Sales'!A:D, "select B, sum(D) where C = 'North' group by B order by sum(D) desc", 1)Task by task
| Task | Claude Opus 4.8 | DeepSeek V4 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Excel formula from a description | 10 | 9 |
| Fix a broken formula | 9 | 7 |
| Clean messy data | 10 | 10 |
| Choose the right chart | 10 | 8 |
| Google Sheets QUERY | 5 | 10 |
| Spot the error in the numbers | 10 | 10 |
| Pivot logic in words | 10 | 10 |
| Percentage change trap | 10 | 10 |
| Conditional formatting rule | 10 | 10 |
| Reconcile two lists | 9 | 10 |
| Explain a formula back | 10 | 10 |
| Refuse the impossible | 10 | 7 |
Full receipts: Claude Opus 4.8, DeepSeek V4 Flash · judges gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5
Questions people ask
Which is better for spreadsheets & Excel: Claude Opus 4.8 or DeepSeek V4 Flash?
Claude Opus 4.8 — it scored 94/100 against 93/100 on our 12-task spreadsheets & Excel suite, winning 4 tasks to 2 with 6 tied. Every answer was marked blind by three judges from three rival AI labs.
How was this tested?
Both models answered the identical published spreadsheets & Excel tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.
More spreadsheets & Excel head-to-heads: Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.3-Codex · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs GPT-5.3-Codex · Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.6 Luna · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Luna · Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.6 Terra · DeepSeek V4 Flash vs GPT-5.6 Terra
Full ranking: Best AI for spreadsheets & Excel · model pages: Claude Opus 4.8, DeepSeek V4 Flash