This is possible, and the question itself reveals exactly why AI-native spreadsheets matter. The user here is not asking for a miracle, they are asking for something profoundly sensible: merge two CSV exports, compare the fields, highlight what changed, and preserve the custom notes they added between imports. That last requirement is the crux. Traditional spreadsheet tools treat each import as a fresh start. You bring in new data, and your manual annotations get wiped unless you build elaborate workarounds. The user knows this, which is why they specified that VBA and macros are off the table. They are working within Power Query and Excel formatting, and they are hitting a wall.
What this user needs is not a more complex macro or a third-party plugin. They need a spreadsheet that understands context. An AI-native spreadsheet can recognize that a row with a specific serial number is not a new entry every time an export lands, it is the same asset, with continuity. When the user adds columns for POC, building, EOL date, and notes, the tool should treat those as persistent metadata, not transient annotations. The merge logic should compare the current export against the previous one, flag additions and removals, and then overlay the user's custom data back onto the matching rows. That is not a hack. That is a core capability.
The practical implication is immediate. This user is a property book officer or someone in a similar role who spends time re-entering or re-matching data that should be preserved. Every export cycle, they lose a little productivity and risk introducing errors. An AI-native spreadsheet would let them define a primary key, serial number or barcode, and then treat all subsequent imports as updates to an existing dataset, not replacements. Formatting rules for changes become trivial. Custom columns persist automatically. The user stops fighting the tool and starts focusing on verification, which is the actual value they bring.
Our opinion is straightforward: this workflow is exactly the kind of friction that AI-native spreadsheets are designed to eliminate. The user is not asking for anything exotic. They want a spreadsheet that remembers. That is a reasonable expectation, and it is one that legacy tools are structurally unable to meet without scripting. The solution is not to learn VBA or beg for macro permissions. It is to adopt a tool where the spreadsheet itself handles continuity, so the user can focus on the work that only a human can do.