This is exactly the kind of problem that reveals how much friction still exists in traditional spreadsheet tools. A user has the raw data: text strings representing hours and days. They need minutes. The logic is straightforward, multiply hours by 60, days by 1,440, but the software refuses to cooperate because the numbers are trapped inside text. The user tried a multiplier function. It didn't recognize the data as numbers. So a simple calculation becomes a roadblock.
We see this pattern constantly. The spreadsheet treats text and numbers as different species, even when the text is clearly numeric. The user has no start or end dates, so they cannot fall back on date-difference formulas. They are left with manual workarounds: splitting strings, using VALUE or TEXTBEFORE, writing nested IFs. And that is the real problem. The tool forces the user to become a data-cleaning technician before they can do the analysis they actually need. The average management time they want is buried under a layer of format wrangling.
An AI-native approach would skip that entire layer. The system should understand that "3 days 2 hours" is a duration, not a mystery. It should parse the text, recognize the units, and offer the conversion without the user having to diagnose why a multiplication failed. The question "Can I turn the hour-day numbers into actual minute values?" should never need to be asked. The tool should answer it before the user finishes typing. That is not a futuristic wish. It is a reasonable expectation for software that claims to handle modern data workflows.
The practical takeaway here is not a workaround for Excel O365 v. 2511. It is that the user's time and attention are being wasted on a problem that should not exist. If you are spending effort convincing your spreadsheet to treat a number as a number, the spreadsheet is failing you. The solution is not to learn more arcane functions. It is to expect better from your tools. Demand software that meets you where you are, text strings, mixed units, messy inputs, and gives you the answer, not another puzzle.