AI in Excel Sheets, Copyright Lawsuits, and NotebookLM's Makeover

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What do Hugging Face, copyright lawyers, and Google Docs have in common? They all want a piece of your enterprise AI workflow.

From turning Excel into a prompt playground to turning lawsuits into precedent-setting court dramas, the AI landscape isn’t slowing down. Let’s break down what matters and what to watch.

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AI Sheets: Hugging Face Put an LLM in Your Spreadsheet

Hugging Face launched AI Sheets, an open-source tool that adds LLM capabilities directly to your Google Sheets. No API keys, no coding, no hugging pandas. Think ChatGPT, but inside Excel, running on open models like Zephyr, Mistral, and Gemma.

What it does:

• Try the tool for free (no installation required): https://huggingface.co/spaces/aisheets/sheets

• Install and run locally: https://github.com/huggingface/sheets

• Run LLM prompts directly in a sheet cell

• Use formulas like =AI("Summarize this data") or =AI_LIST("generate 5 ideas")

• Customize model, temperature, and context

Is this a first-of-it’s-kind bridge between business users and AI-native workflows?

Why this matters for enterprise teams

Let’s break down the implications:

• IT won’t block it (yet): Because it runs on open models and can be self-hosted, security concerns are far lower than with OpenAI plugins or third-party integrations. This could open the floodgates for real experimentation in ops, marketing, HR, and finance.

• Prompting becomes collaborative: One prompt = one formula. AI Sheets lets teams share prompts like they share spreadsheet templates, making prompt engineering far more reusable and team-friendly.

• Speed to value: No onboarding. No prompt playgrounds. No learning curve. It’s just a formula in a cell. That unlocks rapid use cases like:

  • Auto-generating blog intros from a content calendar

  • Cleaning survey data with a single click

  • Generating role-specific interview questions

  • Drafting first-pass emails from CRM notes

• OSS models get real-world reps: This gives open models meaningful visibility outside of developer circles. We’ll likely see teams evaluating which OSS models perform best in lightweight business use cases, and reshaping their LLM strategies around it.

One caveat:

You’ll need Colab or local infrastructure to host the model if you don’t want to use Hugging Face’s runtime. So for enterprise teams with zero infra, that’s still a step. But for anyone experimenting with private LLMs already, this just made spreadsheets the fastest front-end in your AI toolkit.

Watch this trend: AI Sheets could become the open-source competitor to Microsoft Copilot, just with fewer meetings and more control.

News Roundup

1. NotebookLM gets reporting features
   Google upgraded NotebookLM with better citation tools and a "Source Guide" so you can trace where AI outputs come from. A small but meaningful step toward enterprise-friendly transparency.
   Read more →

2. Apple hit with pre-launch copyright lawsuit
   Just days before the iPhone 17 event, Apple got slapped with a lawsuit alleging its AI models were trained on copyrighted books.
   Read more →

3. Anthropic settles $1.5B copyright case
   Speaking of lawsuits, Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement over training Claude on copyrighted lyrics. This may set a precedent for AI copyright liability, and that’s a number even big tech notices.
   Read more →

TL;DR:

• Hugging Face’s AI Sheets brings open-source LLMs into Google Sheets, no code required. Expect internal copilots to multiply.

• Google made NotebookLM a bit more enterprise-ready with source tracking and better citations.

• Apple joins OpenAI and Meta in the AI copyright hot seat, right before a major product reveal.

• Anthropic paid $1.5B to settle a copyright case. That’s not a rounding error, it’s a business model risk.

As copyright lawsuits escalate and open tools get easier, we’re watching two camps form: closed-model giants hoping for legislative grace, and open-source players betting on transparency, speed, and trust.

Enterprise AI leaders should ask:
What’s your bet, and is your legal team in the loop?

Stay sharp,

Cat Valverde
Founder, Enterprise AI Solutions
Navigating Tomorrow’s Tech Landscape Together