Can AI Studio teach me how to build a pivot table?

January 2025

Hardly a week passes at the moment without some technology announcement that makes me go “wow!”.

This week it’s Google’s AI Studio that has been impressing me, offering a glimpse into what the future of software education could look like.

What’s different with this tool is that it lets you share your screen and have a verbal conversation with the AI model (in this case Gemini), so it can walk you through a problem.

In my case, I used it to walk me through building a pivot table. And whilst it didn’t get everything correct (yet!), it’s impressive and feels like you’re talking to an assistant, not your computer.

How to use AI Studio to teach you

  • Go to https://aistudio.google.com/
  • Sign in with your Google account. It’s free to use. When you log in, the homepage looks like this:
Google AI Studio homepage
  • Click on the “Stream Realtime” in the left menu (shown by the red arrow).
  • Share your screen and have a conversation with AI Studio! For example, you could say:

    “I want you to walk me through building a pivot table that summarizes the total sales price by property type.”

    (And say it out loud, don’t type it in.)
  • Because the Pivot Table once existed under the data menu, AI Studio initially guided me there first (the only serious mistake it made). I said “I don’t see the pivot table option under the data menu, is it under one of the other menus?”

    So, don’t hesitate to interject if you can see it making a mistake.
  • Once you have a basic pivot table, you could ask for help sorting the data or adding another category.
  • Another great use case is asking it to explain lines of code to you. For example, share your screen showing a code block and try something like this “can you explain what the code on lines 52 – 56 does?”

It’s early days, so it’s far from perfect. It does make mistakes so you can’t rely on it blindly. You still need to cultivate your own knowledge.

But it’s a glimpse into what’s around the corner when we have infinitely patient AI assistants at our beck and call. And I think that’s a bright future, where we can be dramatically more efficient, focused on insights and outcomes, not code syntax or formula issues.

What do you think?

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