Review financial statements, sales or activity reports, or other performance data to measure productivity or goal achievement or to identify areas needing cost reduction or program improvement.
AI finds trends and writes the spreadsheet formulas.
📊 Real AI use (Anthropic Economic Index, Apr 2026 to May 2026): AI completed the task directly in 61% of those conversations; the rest were back-and-forth with the person.
Show prompt & steps
Paste a spreadsheet or table and ask AI to find trends, outliers and totals, or to write the formula you need. It's like having an analyst on call.
Ready-to-use prompt
I work as a general / operations manager. Part of my job is to review financial statements, sales or activity reports, or other performance data to measure productivity or goal achievement or to identify areas needing cost reduction or program improvement. Context: We use Tableau and IBM SPSS Statistics; the work draws on administration and management, production and processing and economics and accounting. Decision to make: [approve, change, invest, staff] Reports: [paste key figures or summaries] Summarize what the reports show, the options, the trade-offs, and what you'd want to know before deciding. Show calculations.
10-minute exercise: Turn reports into a decision
AI makes arithmetic mistakes. Recompute anything that matters with a spreadsheet formula.
Double-check every number. AI can make arithmetic and rounding mistakes.
Importance 4.2/5 · core task · O*NET work activity: Analyze data to inform operational decisions or activities.. Also involves: Analyze financial records to improve efficiency..