This is a classic spreadsheet problem, and the frustration in the scenario is completely understandable. When you have thousands of SKUs and 25+ contract columns, the MIN function gives you the best price, but it leaves you blind to the source. You get a number, not a story. The user is asking whether it is possible to highlight the column that produced the MIN value, and the honest answer is that this is exactly the kind of task where traditional spreadsheets start to break down.
The core issue here isn't the complexity of the formula, it's the scale. Filtering and sorting across thousands of rows and dozens of columns isn't a workflow; it's a chore. The user already knows that. What they are really asking for is a way to make the data *tell* them something, not just compute a result. In a traditional spreadsheet, you can write a conditional formatting rule using a MATCH function, but that gets brittle when you have duplicate values across multiple contracts. You end up with a cell that highlights the first match, not the full picture. That is not a solution. It is a workaround that still requires manual verification.
What this user needs is a tool that treats data as a connected system, not a grid of independent cells. An AI-native spreadsheet can understand that a "best price" is not just a minimum value, it is a relationship between a SKU, a contract, and a business outcome. Instead of writing a fragile formula to highlight a column, the tool should surface the answer directly: "For SKU 123, the best price is $1.10 from Contract A and Contract C." That is not a formatting trick. It is a query. It is the difference between asking a spreadsheet to paint a cell and asking it to answer a question.
The practical takeaway is this: if you find yourself building complex conditional formatting rules just to see which column your MIN function picked, you have outgrown the tool. The solution is not a better formula. It is a smarter environment that understands your data model and surfaces insights without requiring you to construct a scaffolding of workarounds. Stop asking how to highlight the column. Start asking how to get the answer in one step.