Can AI write a formula without sending my sheet away?
Grid by Zaweba's AI help sends nothing unless you ask, uses your own account or a local model, and shows exactly which cells and formulas are sent.
Yes, with care over what you choose. Grid by Zaweba has optional AI help for writing, explaining and fixing formulas, but nothing is sent until you ask, it only works with an account you connect yourself, and it can use a free model running on your own PC, such as one through Ollama, so your sheet never leaves the machine at all.
How the AI help is set up
Grid works fully without any AI. The AI actions stay greyed out until you connect an account. You can connect a cloud service you already use, such as Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, Azure, Mistral, Grok or DeepSeek, a free model on your own PC, or even a chat website by copy and paste, where you see and carry every message yourself.
Your keys are encrypted for your Windows account and stored in a shared AI store on your PC.
What is sent, exactly
Only when you ask, Grid sends the sheet name, the selection's address and size, the active cell with its formula and the values it refers to, the header row, the selected cells as text up to 200 rows by 30 columns, and up to 40 formulas. Not the workbook, not other sheets, not your files.
The Ask AI panel, opened with Ctrl+Shift+I, has a Context sent view that shows what went with each request. You can check it any time, which is the honest way to know rather than trust.
If you connect a model running on your PC, those details go to that model on your machine and nowhere else. If you connect a cloud service, they go to that service under your own account.
Writing a formula
Choose Write a formula... and finish the sentence: total the sales for the north region where the status is paid, say. The AI suggests a formula. Before Grid offers to insert it, its own engine checks it: the formula must parse, use real functions with valid numbers of arguments, and refer to names that exist. A dialog shows what the formula works out to right now, so you can see whether the answer is plausible before it goes in.
That check matters. An AI can produce a formula that looks right and isn't. Grid catches the ones that can't work at all, and the live result helps you catch the ones that work but answer the wrong question.
Explaining and fixing
Explain this formula describes, in plain words, what the formula in the active cell does. It's useful for a workbook someone else built. Fix this formula looks at a formula that returns an error and suggests a corrected version, which again goes through Grid's own checks before you can insert it.
When to keep things fully local
If the sheet holds anything sensitive, such as payroll, medical details or client data, a local model is the cautious choice. Ollama and LM Studio both run models on your own PC, and Grid can connect to them. The results may be less polished than a large cloud model, but the data stays with you.
For everyday sheets, a cloud account you already have may be fine, since only the selection and its context are sent, and only when you ask.
Keeping your own judgement
Treat suggestions as a draft. Read the formula, look at the live result, and trace precedents if you're unsure what it reads. You're the one who knows what the answer should be.
Grid by Zaweba was built so the spreadsheet stays yours: free, offline by default, and with AI help that waits to be asked and shows its working.
