Fundamental's Shortcut builds AI Excel agent using 'Cogen' method — outperforms Microsoft Copilot
Jul 3, 2025 with Nico Christie
Key Points
- Fundamental launches Shortcut, an Excel agent that claims four times better performance than Gemini on spreadsheet tasks through a proprietary 'Cogen' method that generates executable code at runtime.
- Demand outpaces supply immediately: a LinkedIn launch post drew 7,000 comments with only 50 invite codes distributed, prompting founder Nico Christie to commit $1 million to GPU infrastructure.
- Fundamental pursues bottom-up adoption modeled on Cursor rather than enterprise sales, betting on organic user pull from individual spreadsheet workers over top-down CTO pitches.
Summary
Fundamental, a Menlo Park-based AI research lab, launched Shortcut on July 2, 2025, positioning it as a superhuman Excel agent that materially outperforms existing tools. Co-founder Nico claims internal benchmarks show Shortcut performs roughly four times better than Gemini on Excel tasks, with Copilot and GenSpark also trailing in head-to-head comparisons.
The technical differentiation centers on what Fundamental calls 'Cogen' — codegen at runtime. Rather than wrapping a chat interface around a spreadsheet, Shortcut owns the machine interface by recreating Excel with feature parity, then generates executable code dynamically as tasks require. The analogy Nico draws is to Cursor forking VS Code: owning the interface is the prerequisite for genuine agentic capability, not a plug-in layered on top.
Fundamental shut down its MIT lab roughly 18 months ago and previously held the state-of-the-art on OSWorld, the computer-use benchmark. The Excel product is the commercial expression of that computer-use research, applied to a specific, high-value workflow.
Demand has outpaced supply immediately. The LinkedIn launch post generated approximately 7,000 comments, yet only 50 invite codes had been distributed as of the interview. The sole constraint is GPU capacity. Nico says he is committing a $1 million infrastructure spend to scale compute and clear the backlog.
On go-to-market, Fundamental is running a bottom-up strategy modeled loosely on Cursor's developer-led adoption rather than pursuing enterprise top-down contracts. Nico's stated preference is organic pull from individual users rather than pitching CTOs at firms like Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, though he acknowledges an enterprise motion could eventually support headcount reduction arguments at scale.