DingTalk's "AI Ambition": A Table Reshaping a Business System

In the evolution of productivity tools, we have witnessed the transformation from typewriters to Office, and experienced the iteration from cloud documents to spreadsheets. Today, with the arrival of the AI era, a new paradigm shift is occurring.

On July 8th, DingTalk launched its brand new AI spreadsheet, with a clear intention: this is not just an upgrade of a tool, but a new application entry point designed for the AI era.

DingTalk's "ambition" is to evolve this spreadsheet, which is most familiar to Chinese users, from a simple data-carrying tool into an "AI database" and "entry point for new AI applications" that can build intelligent business systems.

In DingTalk's vision, AI is no longer an auxiliary function, but has become a native capability of the spreadsheet. Each cell is both a trigger point for AI and the beginning of an intelligent workflow.

The core logic is to deeply integrate AI with the most valuable business data of enterprises, allowing data to truly flow and create value.

01 "Three Pronged Approach": How Does DingTalk Make Spreadsheets "Smarter"?

The "intelligence" of DingTalk's AI spreadsheet is mainly reflected in three aspects:

1. AI Native Fields and Multimodal Content Generation: Over 80 types of AI field templates are directly embedded in the spreadsheet. Users only need to configure AI instructions once to automatically process newly added data. Whether intelligently extracting and classifying information from massive evaluations, or generating text, images, audio, and video content, AI can complete these tasks in bulk. Official data shows that tasks that previously took days to complete can now be resolved in just one hour.
2. Zero Threshold Data Analysis: For many non-professionals, complex calculation formulas and pivot tables are insurmountable obstacles. DingTalk's AI spreadsheet attempts to break this barrier, allowing users to issue commands in natural language, with AI automatically generating formulas or one-click professional visual charts, instantly transforming the spreadsheet into a "business data cockpit."

1. AI-Driven Automated Processes: By setting "trigger conditions" and "execution actions," AI can become a 24/7 "digital employee." For example, once data changes, AI can automatically notify designated personnel or create to-do items before deadlines, significantly improving process efficiency.

02 Core Innovation: "Spreadsheet as Document" Breaks Data Boundaries

Traditional spreadsheets often struggle with handling unstructured information such as images, videos, and long texts. To address this, DingTalk AI Spreadsheet has launched the innovative feature of "Spreadsheet as Document," deeply integrating documents and data tables for the first time.

In the new AI spreadsheet, each row of records is an independently editable document. Users can freely input text, insert images and videos, and format it just like writing a document.

The value of this change is particularly prominent in specific business scenarios:

• In the influencer management of live e-commerce companies, past spreadsheets only contained an influencer's avatar and scattered data, with detailed information spread across various places. Now, clicking on a cell expands it into a complete influencer homepage, making their representative works, historical data, and personal profile clear at a glance.

• In product inventory management, a product name in the spreadsheet is no longer just a simple stock number, but has its own dedicated detail page, fully displaying product images, videos, supplier information, historical sales, and restocking records.

Through this approach, structured data and unstructured information achieve seamless integration, turning the slogan of "managing the company with a single table" into reality, and even allowing for the construction of a simpler and more powerful corporate knowledge base than before.

03 From "Three Days" to "Ten Minutes": The Practical Implementation of AI Spreadsheet

From e-commerce operations to airport logistics, DingTalk AI Spreadsheet has demonstrated its potential to enhance efficiency across multiple industries.

• E-commerce Operations: A certain e-commerce brand previously spent 3 days manually aggregating and analyzing consumer reviews across platforms and multiple stores. After introducing the AI spreadsheet, RPA tools automatically capture data, and AI field templates automatically classify and organize it, shortening the entire process to 10 minutes. At the same time, the DSR (Seller Service Rating) data of the company's 13 stores can be clearly visualized on a dashboard, triggering alerts if a surge in negative reviews is detected, preventing issues before they arise.
• Logistics and Repairs: Shentong Express faced the challenge of nearly ten thousand employees dealing with repair requests, with the existing OA system being cumbersome and slow to respond. After switching to the AI spreadsheet, the entire process from work order submission, AI intelligent allocation, task pushing to result feedback achieved a closed-loop management. In the first month of the system going live, 74.6% of work orders were "cleared on the same day."
• Material Management: The security checkpoint at Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport consumes over a million items annually, and past paper registrations led to chaotic inventory data. Now, an AI spreadsheet has become the "intelligent inventory manager," not only presenting real-time inventory but also intelligently predicting stock-out risks and proactively reminding for restocking
• Promotional Collaboration: Semir's Balabala brand utilized AI spreadsheets during the 618 promotional period to enable partners from different channels such as live streaming, communities, and Taobao affiliates to collaborate on the same sheet. The task objectives and milestones were clearly visible, allowing responsible parties to grasp the overall situation in real-time and quickly analyze sales data through an AI dashboard to identify slow-moving categories, ultimately achieving a doubling of both sales and efficiency.

DingTalk's move signifies that the application of AI is transitioning from a single dialogue window to a system-level application that can integrate into enterprise communication, collaboration, and the entire business process.

It is understood that users who update to the latest version of DingTalk can obtain free basic usage of AI spreadsheets, which undoubtedly lowers the threshold for enterprises to embrace AI.

As a leading work collaboration platform in China, DingTalk is attempting to redefine the collaborative relationship between humans and AI through this product.

This article is from WeChat Official Account "Hard AI". For more cutting-edge AI news, please click here.