Array Assistant vs GRID

Array Assistant is a Microsoft Excel add-in that puts nine AI helpers inside your workbook. You install the plugin, open a sheet, and run tools for formula writing, data cleanup, summaries, list building, trend spotting, and text drafting without leaving Excel.

Most spreadsheet add-ins charge from day one or hide everything behind one chat box. Array Assistant splits work into named tools like Formula Generator, Data Cleaner, and Trend Analyzer, each tuned to a spreadsheet task. The Basic plan stays free at 200 requests per month, and the site publishes solution pages for investment banking, private equity, accounting, venture capital, consulting, real estate, and insurance teams rather than pitching a generic assistant.

The plugin suits analysts, students, and business professionals who live in Excel and want faster formula work, cleaner columns, and quick text inside cells. Corporate teams can request custom pricing when they need unlimited usage across employees.

GRID is a spreadsheet engine for developers embedding Excel-grade calculations and sheet UI inside their own products. Install @grid-is/spreadsheet-engine from npm and run recalculation in the browser, on Node.js, on-device, or on your own infrastructure. The companion @grid-is/agent-tools package exposes 27 MCP-ready tools so agents load .xlsx files, trace precedents, edit cells, and goal-seek without writing Python each time.

Generic spreadsheet libraries leave you wiring cell reads by hand, and agents that generate openpyxl scripts burn tokens while guessing at formula dependencies. GRID pairs a deterministic recalculation core with structured tool calls, which is why its agent setup scored 91.25% on SpreadsheetBench's expert-verified 400 tasks while a code-generation approach on the same goal-seek demo needed 3,240 tokens versus 86.

Software teams building SaaS dashboards, Excel add-ins, or LLM products use GRID's headless engine plus optional Spreadsheet Viewer and Editor React components when humans need a familiar sheet surface. Customers cited on grid.is include major investment banks and a leading LLM provider. Every npm package ships with a free evaluation license; commercial licenses apply when you ship to customers.