This user's workflow is a perfect example of something we see all the time: someone has built a clever solution, using `FORECAST.LINEAR` to interpolate a value, but the process around it is still manual. They know the math works. The problem is that the spreadsheet itself can't tell them which two columns contain the boundary values for their lookup. So they pause, scan the row, find the right pair, and type them in by hand. That's not a calculation problem. That's a data discovery problem, and it's exactly the kind of friction that AI-native spreadsheets are designed to remove.
What this user is really asking for is a way to make the spreadsheet *know* what it already contains. The data is there. The relationship between the known value in B12 and the column headers in row 6 is straightforward: find the two columns where the header values bracket the input. But traditional spreadsheet functions like `INDEX` and `MATCH` are built for exact matches, not for "give me the pair that surrounds this number." You can force it with nested `IF` statements or a helper row, but that adds complexity, not clarity. The user shouldn't have to build a Rube Goldberg machine just to let the tool do what feels like an obvious task.
An AI-powered spreadsheet should handle this natively. Instead of requiring the user to predefine a lookup range or write a multi-step formula, the tool could interpret the intent: "Given this value, find the two columns it falls between, then return the corresponding cells from row 6." That's a single, human-readable instruction. It's not about replacing `FORECAST.LINEAR`, that function is already doing its job. It's about removing the manual step that sits in front of it. The result is a workflow that flows from question to answer without interruption.
The practical takeaway here is simple: the next generation of spreadsheet tools needs to close the gap between what users *want* to say and what the formula language currently forces them to express. This user already knows the solution they need. They just shouldn't have to hunt for the data to feed it.