Course Description
A lack of usable data is to blame for the limited use of AI in many organisations, research suggests. Siloed systems and poor data quality remain the top barriers to the promises of AI-driven efficiencies. This one-day course shows how to use AI to fix messy data and simplify recurring reports. Participants learn how to use modern tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to bring together, clean, prepare and use data from many sources — without doing everything manually. It helps automate tasks such as preparing and producing regular period reports, so you can spend more time analysing results and less time organising the data. Through hands-on exercises and real-world case studies, you’ll master AI-assisted data workflows—making your data preparation faster, smarter, and more efficient.
Pre-requisites
Participants should have attended our AI in Excel using ChatGPT and Copilot course or have equivalent knowledge.
Who should attend
This course is ideal for people who work with data and regular reporting — for example:Data Analysts & BI Professionals – Automate data prep and improve efficiency.
Business & Financial Analysts – Clean and integrate data for better insights.
Excel & Power Query Users – Enhance workflows with AI-driven automation.
IT & Data Engineers – Streamline data integration from multiple sources.
Marketing & Sales Analysts – Optimise data for reporting and forecasting.
Anyone Handling Large Data Sets – Reduce manual work and improve accuracy.
Software setup required
Prior to the course, all participants should register for a free account on ChatGPT so they can complete the hands-on exercises. Participants should also have a Microsoft account to log in to https://copilot.microsoft.com/ and should do this prior to the course.
Key Learning Outcomes
Participants will learn how to use AI to:
• Automate repetitive data tasks
• Prepare data for regular reporting with less manual work
• Find and fix data problems automatically
• Combine data from multiple places smoothly
• Save time and reduce errors in your monthly/quarterly reports
Getting Started with AI and Data
Understanding the Role of AI in Data Integration
What AI can do to help with data tasks
How AI tools can help automate repetitive work like cleaning and combining information from different sources
PowerQuery & AI-Assisted Data Preparation
Use AI tools to help configure Power Query to:
o remove duplicate entries
o fix missing or wrongly-formatted data
o organise and standardise numbers, dates and text
• These steps make data ready for regular reports without manual cleanup.
Bringing Data Together Easily
Automatically pull data from:
o Excel files
o Databases
o Web pages or online systems
• AI helps format and merge the data, so it matches up correctly.
Making Data ready for reporting
AI can:
o Combine data from different systems
o Spot unusual results that need checking
o Suggest ways to organise data for better insights
• This dramatically reduces the time needed to build your periodic reports.
AI-Assisted Data Consolidation & Merging
Combining & Integrating Data from Multiple Sources
Merging Data from Different Formats & Structures (CSV, Excel, API, Database)
AI-Powered Data Mapping & Schema Matching
Automating Data Aggregation with AI
Entity Resolution & Deduplication with AI
Cross-Referencing Data Sources for Enhanced Accuracy
