July 17, 2025 – According to a report from The Information today, OpenAI is actively working on enhancing ChatGPT’s productivity capabilities. The company is aiming to introduce native support for Excel (.xlsx) and PowerPoint (.pptx) files, enabling users to create, open, and edit these documents directly within the ChatGPT interface.
At present, ChatGPT can generate text that resembles the content of spreadsheets or slideshows and create downloadable Excel or PowerPoint files. However, there are significant limitations. The current workflow involves generating outlines of spreadsheets or slideshows as plain text. Users can then export these as.xlsx or.pptx files via downloads. While there is an option to use Canvas for editing the generated content, this is only applicable to plain – text files. Additionally, users can request inline modifications from ChatGPT, but this functionality is quite restricted.
The main drawbacks of the current system are evident. Users cannot open or modify real Excel or PowerPoint files within the ChatGPT interface. There are no built – in Excel functions, formulas, or PowerPoint animations available. As a result, users have to switch to external applications to carry out full – scale editing.
A source with knowledge of the development revealed that the upcoming new features of ChatGPT will overcome these limitations. It will allow for complete editing of Excel and PPT files directly within the platform.
In addition to file – editing enhancements, OpenAI is reportedly developing a powerful AI agent. This agent will have the ability to automatically generate reports. It can access both public data from the web or databases and private data, such as company files, uploaded documents, and data from APIs or integrated tools. Once configured, the agent can generate fully formatted Excel or PPT reports based on real – time or custom data sources. This feature is expected to be highly beneficial for teams that require automated analysis, status updates, or market intelligence.
Apart from these document – related tools, there are also rumors that OpenAI is developing an AI – based browser, although no specific details have been disclosed in the report.
