May 2026's headline: the Agent can now search the web — ask it an open-ended research question and it does the digging for you, then turns the results into a finished spreadsheet. You can also now build and manage your own Agent skills from the GPT for Work dashboard (currently in beta), and they become available to the Agent in Sheets or Excel automatically. Rounding out the month is a batch of bug fixes and refinements.
Explore the key improvements and announcements below, and check out the release notes for the full details.
🔎 Agentic web search 
The Agent can now autonomously search the web. Ask it an open-ended research question and it goes out, runs as many searches as it needs, reasons over what it finds, and brings the answer straight into your spreadsheet — no input list, no setup, no manual lookups.
This is real research from scratch, not just enriching rows you already have — the Agent discovers the information itself. So you can ask things like:
- List 20 e-commerce companies that sell scented candles in the US, then find each one's website and summarize its value proposition.
- Find the 10 best-funded AI startups this year and what each one does.
- What were the biggest developments in EU privacy regulation last month?
Watch the Agent take on the first prompt — starting from a blank spreadsheet, it runs a series of web searches, and you can follow its progress live in the sidebar:
Behind the scenes, each research task runs in a dedicated subagent with a specific model — so the digging happens independently without cluttering the main conversation, and the Agent stays focused on turning the results into your finished spreadsheet.
🛠️ Build your own Agent skills (beta)
Last month the Agent gained skills — specialized capabilities it loads on demand for tasks like charts and pivot tables. Now you can create your own. From the GPT for Work dashboard, you can build and manage custom Agent skills tailored to your team's workflows. Once a skill is enabled, it's automatically available to the Agent in Sheets or Excel. No extra setup needed in the add-on.
⚡ Other improvements and fixes
- Removed the deprecated Formula Assistant feature from the GPT for Excel add-in sidebar to simplify the interface.
- Fixed an issue in bulk tools where a column variable failed to resolve when the column header contained square brackets. For example,
{{Name [company]}}now correctly matches the column headedName [company]. - Fixed
GPT_EXTRACTso it works when theto_extractargument is a number instead of a string. For example,=GPT_EXTRACT("I worked 12 years at Amazon.com and Apple", 2)now behaves the same as=GPT_EXTRACT("I worked 12 years at Amazon.com and Apple", "2"). - Fixed an issue where loading a previous run from bulk tool history could get stuck on Loading tool configuration in large or formula-heavy spreadsheets.
- Fixed an issue in the GPT for Work dashboard where removing a member from your space froze the page and required a refresh.
📖 To go further
Check out our resources to get the most out of GPT for Work:
- 📚 Step-by-step guides for Sheets, Excel, Word, and Docs
- 📖 Complete documentation — Find everything you need to know about GPT for Work!
- 📝 Our blog articles for e-commerce, SEO, and market research
- 📺 Our YouTube channel with video tutorials
- 📄 Release notes — Or read them directly in the add-ons!
- 🔧 Contact support — Need help? Reach out to our friendly team.
