✦ AI Use Case

AI-Assisted Code Generation
VBA Development at AI Speed

How GitHub Copilot and Azure OpenAI accelerate VBA and Office Script development — generating, refactoring, and documenting automation code intelligently.

🏚 Industry: Cross-Industry
🛠 Tool: GitHub Copilot + Azure OpenAI
Impact: 3x faster VBA development

Business Problem

Scenario: Legacy VBA Modernization

A company has 15 years of undocumented VBA macros across 200+ Excel workbooks. The original developer has left. New automation requests take weeks because developers must reverse-engineer existing code before adding features. Documentation is nonexistent.

AI Code Generation in Practice

Before: Manual VBA Development
'  BEFORE: Developer writes this manually
Sub GenerateMonthlyReport()
    Dim ws As Worksheet
    Dim lastRow As Long
    Set ws = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Data")
    lastRow = ws.Cells(ws.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row
    '  ... 80 more lines of boilerplate
End Sub
After: GitHub Copilot Generates from Intent Comment
'  AFTER: GitHub Copilot generates from comment
'  Generate monthly sales report: group by region,
'  calculate totals, apply formatting, email to managers

Sub GenerateMonthlyReport()
    Dim wsData As Worksheet, wsReport As Worksheet
    Dim dictRegion As Object
    Set dictRegion = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")

    Set wsData = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("SalesData")
    Set wsReport = ThisWorkbook.Sheets("Report")

    Dim i As Long, lastRow As Long
    lastRow = wsData.Cells(wsData.Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

    '  Group sales by region
    For i = 2 To lastRow
        Dim region As String, amount As Double
        region = wsData.Cells(i, 3).Value
        amount = wsData.Cells(i, 5).Value
        If dictRegion.Exists(region) Then
            dictRegion(region) = dictRegion(region) + amount
        Else
            dictRegion.Add region, amount
        End If
    Next i

    '  Write to report sheet with formatting
    wsReport.Cells.Clear
    wsReport.Range("A1").Value = "Region"
    wsReport.Range("B1").Value = "Total Sales"
    wsReport.Range("A1:B1").Font.Bold = True

    Dim row As Long: row = 2
    Dim key As Variant
    For Each key In dictRegion.Keys
        wsReport.Cells(row, 1).Value = key
        wsReport.Cells(row, 2).Value = dictRegion(key)
        wsReport.Cells(row, 2).NumberFormat = "$#,##0.00"
        row = row + 1
    Next key

    '  Email report to managers
    Call EmailReportToManagers(wsReport)
End Sub
'  Copilot generated 95% of this from the 3-line comment above
Azure OpenAI for legacy code explanation: Paste any undocumented VBA procedure into the Azure OpenAI API and ask it to explain the logic, identify bugs, suggest refactoring, and generate unit test cases — turning black-box legacy code into documented, maintainable assets.

Measured Outcomes

3x
Faster VBA development
200+
Legacy macros documented by AI
40%
Reduction in code bugs
100%
New code auto-documented
↩ Back to VBA & Automation Next →

Ready to Apply This to Your Business?

Let's discuss how AI-enhanced VBA & Office Automation can deliver similar results for your organization.

Start the Conversation