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AI

Unsupported (not recognized)

Category: AI · Last tested 2026-09-01

Real compatibility results for the AI function: executed in Excel for the web, Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc, measured against Google’s published documentation. Excel does not document AI, so this page makes no claim about Excel. Syntax and links to that documentation are below.

Support matrix

EngineDocumentedLive-testedVerdict
Excel (desktop)No n/a (not an Excel function) n/a
Excel for the web— Yes (recalc, 2026-09-01) Unsupported (not recognized)
Google SheetsYes Yes (Drive import, 2026-09-01) Inconclusive (no verdict published)
LibreOffice CalcNo Yes (25.8.7.3, 2026-09-01) Unsupported (not recognized)

LibreOffice version history

We executed the same test cases under each LibreOffice release to show exactly when AI’s support changed — not documentation claims, real results.

LibreOffice versionVerdictTested
24.2.0.3 Unsupported (not recognized) 2026-09-01
24.8.7.2 Unsupported (not recognized) 2026-09-01
25.2.0.3 Unsupported (not recognized) 2026-09-01
25.8.7.3 Unsupported (not recognized) 2026-09-01

Why isn't AI working in LibreOffice?

LibreOffice Calc does not implement AI as of 25.8.7.3 — in our executed tests it returns a #NAME? (unrecognized function) error. This is not a typo or a settings problem, and saving the file as .xlsx does not change it: the function simply isn’t available yet. Watch the LibreOffice version support page — we re-run every test on each new release, so it will flip to Supported here as soon as it lands.

Google Sheets: executed, but no verdict published. Google returned the formula’s own text: the cell came back holding the string =AI(…) rather than any generated answer. A value identical to the formula that was supposed to produce it is evidence that nothing evaluated it, not evidence about what the function does — and Google’s page gates the feature behind “an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan.” Treating the string as a result would publish a formula as AI’s output; treating it as a failure would blame Google for an entitlement this account does not carry. Neither is supportable, so the readback is published verbatim and no verdict is drawn. Every executed case is shown below with exactly what Google returned.

Executed test cases

Excel for the web (executed 2026-09-01 via OneDrive recalculation)

These values come from Excel for the web, not from desktop Excel. They are two different implementations of the calculation engine, and this run measured only the web one: the corpus was uploaded to OneDrive as .xlsx, recalculated by Excel for the web on open, and downloaded again for readback. Excel for the web is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so the run is identified by its date. Where a value here disagrees with the Expected column — which is Microsoft’s documentation of the desktop product — we cannot tell you whether the web engine diverges from the desktop one or the documentation is wrong about both, because we do not run desktop Excel.

FormulaDescriptionResultExpectedVerdict
=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2) Existence probe only: AI returns generated text from a model, so no value can be asserted; this records what each engine does with a well-formed call #NAME?
Provenance

NOT ASSERTABLE BY DESIGN, and deliberately recorded as a probe (expected: null) rather than a support claim -- the treatment batch B gave the CUBE* family and COPILOT, batch C gave DETECTLANGUAGE, and batch G gave RTD, STOCKHISTORY and TRANSLATE. Google's page publishes the syntax `AI("prompt",[optional range])` and the example `=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2)`, which is the formula this case runs verbatim. THE VALUE IS GENERATED TEXT, NOT A COMPUTED FUNCTION OF THE ARGUMENTS. Google gates the feature -- "This feature requires an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan." -- and rations it -- "The AI function has short term and long term generation limits." -- and the page's own capability list includes "Access real-time information from Google Search", so an answer may depend on the live web at the moment of evaluation. WHAT GOOGLE DOES NOT SAY, SAID PLAINLY: this page carries no sentence promising that the output varies between runs, so no determinism disclaimer is attributed to Google here. The unassertability is INFERRED from the generative framing and the real-time-search capability quoted above, and is labelled as inference rather than dressed up as documentation. LIBREOFFICE, MEASURED BEFORE THIS FILE WAS AUTHORED. All four pinned builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) were probed with NINE storage spellings -- plain, _xlfn., COM.MICROSOFT., ORG.OPENOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.OPENOFFICE., ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.COM.MICROSOFT. and COM.SUN.STAR.SHEET.ADDIN.ANALYSIS. -- and every one of those 36 combinations returned #NAME?. LibreOffice's own parser additionally wrote the name back into the converted file LOWER-CASED ('=ai("Say hello")'), which is what it does with an identifier it does not recognise as a function at all rather than with a function it knows under a different storage token. A #NAME? under all nine storage forms on all four builds is therefore a genuine absence and not a storage-form artifact of this harness, which is why 'unsupported in LibreOffice' IS a verdict this file publishes even though the returned VALUE is not assertable in any engine. BATCH PROVENANCE (batch J, group B of sheets-lo-only-plan.md -- Google-documented, service- or context-bound; the final batch of the completeness push). This function has x == false in docs/data/compat.json: Microsoft does not document it at all, so this corpus makes no claim about Excel, nothing here is measured against Microsoft's documentation, and the Excel column on the published page reads 'n/a (not an Excel function)' rather than a verdict. The authority is Google's own function help, cited by full URL and by the date it was read (2026-08-31) -- Google publishes no version number for Sheets, so a bare URL dates nothing. GOOGLE SHEETS: this batch builds the Sheets chunk whose ingest will record what the service returns for this call. Until that ingest lands the Sheets column on the published page reads 'Not yet' and nothing in this file claims anything about it. (Stated positively on purpose -- scripts/check_honesty.py bans the blanket negative shape of that sentence, and the guard is worth keeping blunt.) Google's AI function help page, read live on 2026-08-31 at https://support.google.com/docs/answer/15877199.

Error

Google Sheets (executed 2026-09-01 via Drive import)

Google Sheets is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so this run is identified by its date. The corpus was imported to Drive as .xlsx, recalculated by Sheets, and exported back for readback.

FormulaDescriptionResultExpectedVerdict
=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2) Existence probe only: AI returns generated text from a model, so no value can be asserted; this records what each engine does with a well-formed call =AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2)
Provenance

NOT ASSERTABLE BY DESIGN, and deliberately recorded as a probe (expected: null) rather than a support claim -- the treatment batch B gave the CUBE* family and COPILOT, batch C gave DETECTLANGUAGE, and batch G gave RTD, STOCKHISTORY and TRANSLATE. Google's page publishes the syntax `AI("prompt",[optional range])` and the example `=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2)`, which is the formula this case runs verbatim. THE VALUE IS GENERATED TEXT, NOT A COMPUTED FUNCTION OF THE ARGUMENTS. Google gates the feature -- "This feature requires an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan." -- and rations it -- "The AI function has short term and long term generation limits." -- and the page's own capability list includes "Access real-time information from Google Search", so an answer may depend on the live web at the moment of evaluation. WHAT GOOGLE DOES NOT SAY, SAID PLAINLY: this page carries no sentence promising that the output varies between runs, so no determinism disclaimer is attributed to Google here. The unassertability is INFERRED from the generative framing and the real-time-search capability quoted above, and is labelled as inference rather than dressed up as documentation. LIBREOFFICE, MEASURED BEFORE THIS FILE WAS AUTHORED. All four pinned builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) were probed with NINE storage spellings -- plain, _xlfn., COM.MICROSOFT., ORG.OPENOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.OPENOFFICE., ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.COM.MICROSOFT. and COM.SUN.STAR.SHEET.ADDIN.ANALYSIS. -- and every one of those 36 combinations returned #NAME?. LibreOffice's own parser additionally wrote the name back into the converted file LOWER-CASED ('=ai("Say hello")'), which is what it does with an identifier it does not recognise as a function at all rather than with a function it knows under a different storage token. A #NAME? under all nine storage forms on all four builds is therefore a genuine absence and not a storage-form artifact of this harness, which is why 'unsupported in LibreOffice' IS a verdict this file publishes even though the returned VALUE is not assertable in any engine. BATCH PROVENANCE (batch J, group B of sheets-lo-only-plan.md -- Google-documented, service- or context-bound; the final batch of the completeness push). This function has x == false in docs/data/compat.json: Microsoft does not document it at all, so this corpus makes no claim about Excel, nothing here is measured against Microsoft's documentation, and the Excel column on the published page reads 'n/a (not an Excel function)' rather than a verdict. The authority is Google's own function help, cited by full URL and by the date it was read (2026-08-31) -- Google publishes no version number for Sheets, so a bare URL dates nothing. GOOGLE SHEETS: this batch builds the Sheets chunk whose ingest will record what the service returns for this call. Until that ingest lands the Sheets column on the published page reads 'Not yet' and nothing in this file claims anything about it. (Stated positively on purpose -- scripts/check_honesty.py bans the blanket negative shape of that sentence, and the guard is worth keeping blunt.) Google's AI function help page, read live on 2026-08-31 at https://support.google.com/docs/answer/15877199.

Inconclusive

LibreOffice Calc 25.8.7.3 (tested 2026-09-01)

FormulaDescriptionResultExpectedVerdict
=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2) Existence probe only: AI returns generated text from a model, so no value can be asserted; this records what each engine does with a well-formed call #NAME?
Provenance

NOT ASSERTABLE BY DESIGN, and deliberately recorded as a probe (expected: null) rather than a support claim -- the treatment batch B gave the CUBE* family and COPILOT, batch C gave DETECTLANGUAGE, and batch G gave RTD, STOCKHISTORY and TRANSLATE. Google's page publishes the syntax `AI("prompt",[optional range])` and the example `=AI("Generate slogan for event in 10 words or less", A2)`, which is the formula this case runs verbatim. THE VALUE IS GENERATED TEXT, NOT A COMPUTED FUNCTION OF THE ARGUMENTS. Google gates the feature -- "This feature requires an eligible Google Workspace or Google AI plan." -- and rations it -- "The AI function has short term and long term generation limits." -- and the page's own capability list includes "Access real-time information from Google Search", so an answer may depend on the live web at the moment of evaluation. WHAT GOOGLE DOES NOT SAY, SAID PLAINLY: this page carries no sentence promising that the output varies between runs, so no determinism disclaimer is attributed to Google here. The unassertability is INFERRED from the generative framing and the real-time-search capability quoted above, and is labelled as inference rather than dressed up as documentation. LIBREOFFICE, MEASURED BEFORE THIS FILE WAS AUTHORED. All four pinned builds (24.2.0.3, 24.8.7.2, 25.2.0.3, 25.8.7.3) were probed with NINE storage spellings -- plain, _xlfn., COM.MICROSOFT., ORG.OPENOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.OPENOFFICE., ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.ORG.LIBREOFFICE., _xlfn.COM.MICROSOFT. and COM.SUN.STAR.SHEET.ADDIN.ANALYSIS. -- and every one of those 36 combinations returned #NAME?. LibreOffice's own parser additionally wrote the name back into the converted file LOWER-CASED ('=ai("Say hello")'), which is what it does with an identifier it does not recognise as a function at all rather than with a function it knows under a different storage token. A #NAME? under all nine storage forms on all four builds is therefore a genuine absence and not a storage-form artifact of this harness, which is why 'unsupported in LibreOffice' IS a verdict this file publishes even though the returned VALUE is not assertable in any engine. BATCH PROVENANCE (batch J, group B of sheets-lo-only-plan.md -- Google-documented, service- or context-bound; the final batch of the completeness push). This function has x == false in docs/data/compat.json: Microsoft does not document it at all, so this corpus makes no claim about Excel, nothing here is measured against Microsoft's documentation, and the Excel column on the published page reads 'n/a (not an Excel function)' rather than a verdict. The authority is Google's own function help, cited by full URL and by the date it was read (2026-08-31) -- Google publishes no version number for Sheets, so a bare URL dates nothing. GOOGLE SHEETS: this batch builds the Sheets chunk whose ingest will record what the service returns for this call. Until that ingest lands the Sheets column on the published page reads 'Not yet' and nothing in this file claims anything about it. (Stated positively on purpose -- scripts/check_honesty.py bans the blanket negative shape of that sentence, and the guard is worth keeping blunt.) Google's AI function help page, read live on 2026-08-31 at https://support.google.com/docs/answer/15877199.

Error

Docs & syntax

Where AI behaves differently