Formula Dog vs Columns AI (formerly Columns)

Formula Dog turns spreadsheet problems written in plain English into working Excel or Google Sheets formulas. You describe what you need, and the tool returns a paste-ready formula, often with a short explanation of how it works. The first five requests each day are free with no account required.

The product centers on a fine-tuned model trained on real spreadsheet formulas paired with human-written descriptions. That focus shows up in the output: fewer invented function names and syntax tuned for Excel, Google Sheets, VBA, regex helpers, and basic Airtable or Notion formulas.

It fits analysts, ops teams, and anyone who lives in spreadsheets but does not want to memorize every function variant. The site also ships a searchable cheat sheet, a playground with worked examples, and support for 12 interface languages.

Columns AI takes messy files and live data sources through ingestion, automation, and chart publishing without making you stitch together separate tools. Drive ingests CSV, Excel, PDF, and images with OCR, Flow connects warehouses and apps with plain-language transformations, and Graph publishes brand-matched visuals you can embed or export.

Most BI tools assume your data is already clean and your team knows SQL. Columns splits the problem into three steps on purpose: structure files in Drive, automate sync and transforms in Flow, then ship client-ready charts from Graph without opening a separate design tool. You pay per row processed, and the Basic plan has no monthly base fee.

The site lists 12,000+ users across business operators, consultants, marketing and RevOps teams, analysts, and freelancers. Founder Shawn Cao previously built data infrastructure at Microsoft, Facebook, and Pinterest.