alt Hacker NewsI work at an airline where Claude is replacing data analysis tools like excel, data visualization tools like power bi, all that's left is dynatrace because it does it all automatically like Claude does. Many bespoke data processing or data analysis tools for non programmers are being replaced by Claude suscriptions, like excel, power bi, spss, tableau, those are the most used I think. No Python data analysis nor big data tools like pandas, numpy, apache superset are being replaced though
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I love Claude and use it for many things, including analyzing and manipulating Excel files. But I’m not convinced that replacing spreadsheets with Claude is the right approach.
Over the years, we’ve seen many platforms promise to replace spreadsheets for a particular use case or industry. Businesses adopt them and push users away from Excel, but in many cases, those same users eventually find their way back to Excel to do the exact same work.
My concern is that we may end up creating another dual-system maintenance problem, where some people use AI and others continue using Excel for the same business process. Over time, the two versions inevitably diverge, potentially creating more problems than they solve.
Excel is much stickier than most people realize. I think the more interesting opportunity is figuring out how AI and Excel can work together, rather than trying to replace one with the other.
I would argue using Claude in replacing a spreadsheet is potentially more of a tech debt than the spreadsheet itself. Now if you would use Claude to build a point application that performs the same standard analysis it might be better, but only marginally so.