Chat with your Google Sheets data in plain English
Updated 2026-08-25
An AI data analyst is most useful when it runs on your real data. This guide shows how to connect Google Sheets so you can ask questions in plain English and get charts, dashboards and reports back — without writing SQL by hand.
The setup takes a few minutes: connect your file or sheet, let the analyst read the schema, and ask your first question. Your data are encrypted, and the analysis runs on your own AI provider key.
- 1
Get your Google Sheets connection details
No database credentials are needed. You authorise access to your Google account, then pick the spreadsheet and tab you want to analyse.
- 2
Understand the read-only model
Access is read-only by design — the analyst reads the sheet's values, it never writes back. Share only the spreadsheets you want analysed.
- 3
Create your account and add your AI key
Sign up, then add your own AI provider key (bring-your-own-key). If you don't have one yet, a free key takes about a minute to create — your key is encrypted and used only for your requests.
- 4
Add the Google Sheets connection
Add a data source, choose Google Sheets, authorise your Google account, and select the spreadsheet and tab. The first row is treated as column headers.
- 5
Let the AI read and annotate your schema
The analyst treats each tab as a table and infers column types. You can rename or describe columns in plain English so questions map cleanly.
- 6
Ask your first question in plain English
Ask something like "Total by category from this sheet". On a question the analyst judges complex — a join, a query spanning two sources, several steps — it shows a readable plan and waits for you to approve it before running anything; on one it judges simple it runs first and shows you afterwards. Either way you get the same two controls on every answer: Show SQL gives you the exact query that produced the number, and Show table gives you the rows it returned with their count. That is how you check a figure instead of trusting it. Refine by chatting, then pin it to a dashboard or save it as a report.
Why connect Google Sheets instead of exporting
A static export goes stale the moment you download it, and when an assistant only ever sees that exported file it has to guess what your columns mean. A connected AI data analyst reads live Google Sheets data, shows you a readable plan before running anything on the complex questions (simple ones it runs first and shows you after), and saves what your fields mean against the source itself — so the next question already knows them, and answers stay current and consistent.
Google Sheets: things to know
- Keep a clean header row and consistent column types — merged cells and mixed types make inference harder.
- Google Sheets is uncounted on the Free plan, so it's a good first source to try.
Example questions to ask your Google Sheets data
- Total by category from this sheet
- Month-over-month change in the revenue column
- Rows where status is overdue, grouped by owner
Keeping it safe
- Your uploaded data is read for analysis only and never written back.
- On our side every query is checked before it runs and refused if it contains a write statement — DROP, DELETE, UPDATE, INSERT and fourteen others, eighteen keywords in all. It is a keyword guard, not a full SQL parser, so it can only refuse what it can spell. What actually keeps your file unchanged is that we analyse a stored copy of it; the guard is the second line, not the first.
- Connection details and your AI key are encrypted at rest.
- We train no model on your data — we do not have one; the analysis runs on your own provider key, so the terms that decide what happens to what you send are your provider's, not ours. We re-read your sheet from the Google Sheets API each session rather than keeping a mirror of it, and the rows an answer returns stay in your own account until you delete them.
Frequently asked questions
No. Access is read-only — the analyst reads values to answer questions and never writes back.
Yes. Cross-source questions can join a Google Sheet with your database, CSV or Excel data.
Related
Get your end-to-end AI business intelligence now.
Ask in plain English, pin the answer to a dashboard, export it as CSV, Excel, PDF or PowerPoint — on the free tier that whole loop runs on one database source plus Google Sheets, and the field definitions you save carry into every later session, including after a schema refresh. One exception you should hear from us rather than discover: on a Google Sheet, re-running the tab picker — even only to add a tab — clears the definitions saved for that source and reads its schema fresh. Connecting a database is the technical part: a read-only user and network access, once. If your numbers live in a spreadsheet, none of that applies: put the file in a Google Sheet and it connects on the free tier, with no read-only user and no open port. Uploading a CSV or Excel file directly is a Pro feature, and every new account gets 14 days of Pro with no card. The one thing no plan waives is your own AI provider key, and a Google Gemini key is free to create.
Every new account starts on a 14-day Pro trial with no card. After it lapses, the free tier stays free.