I spent an afternoon testing whether AI could handle something every equity analyst dreads: spreading historical revenue data and building revenue projections from scratch. The task? Extract Tesla's revenue by segment from their 2024 annual report, identify the key drivers, and set up a 5-year projection model.
Spoiler: The results surprised me—both good and bad.
The Setup
The Task: I needed to spread Tesla's revenue and revenue drivers with projections through 2029 for a financial model. This meant:
Pulling historical revenue by segment from the 10-K and investor presentation
Identifying key revenue drivers (unit volumes, ASP, capacity metrics)
Calculating growth rates
Building a projection framework with driver-based assumptions
Why I Tried AI: Excel AI tools have been marketing themselves as analyst replacements. This seemed like the perfect test case—not trivial, but not impossibly complex either. If they could nail this, maybe the hype has some truth to it.
My Background: I'm an advanced user, but I approached this like an intermediate analyst would. No fancy prompt engineering tricks—just straightforward instructions.
The AI Workflow
Tools I Tested: