The question from the Reddit user is perfectly reasonable, and the fact that they had to ask it at all tells you something important about the state of traditional spreadsheets. They want to automate a straightforward task, scan multiple sheets for duplicate case IDs, delete the offending rows when a new entry arrives, and protect a master data sheet from being touched. That is not an exotic request. It is a routine data-cleaning operation. Yet in Excel, it requires writing custom VBA code, understanding event triggers, and wrestling with sheet references. For someone who simply manages cases, that is not a feature. It is a barrier.
We think the real issue here is not whether the task is possible, it is, but whether the tool should make you jump through hoops to accomplish it. The user's frustration is not with the concept of automation. It is with the fact that a tool meant for data management forces you to become a part-time programmer just to keep your records clean. When you have to ask "Is it possible to do this?" about something as fundamental as deduplication across sheets, the tool has already failed its primary promise: to help you work with data, not fight it.
What this means in practical terms is that many professionals are spending hours manually checking for duplicates, writing fragile macros, or building elaborate workarounds, when the real solution is a smarter foundation. An AI-native spreadsheet doesn't make you code a rule for every edge case. It understands what a case ID is, recognizes that duplicates across sheets are almost always an error, and offers to clean them automatically, or at least surfaces them for review without requiring a subroutine. The logic is built into the tool, not buried in a module you have to debug.
For anyone who has ever felt that sinking feeling after pasting new data into a workbook, wondering if you just created duplicates that will haunt your reports for weeks, this matters. You do not need to learn VBA. You do not need to protect a master sheet with fragile formulas. You need a spreadsheet that treats data integrity as a core feature, not an afterthought. The user who posted that question deserves a tool that says "I see the duplicate, let me handle it," not "Write a script and hope it works." That is the difference between managing data and being managed by it.