AI Fuzzy Match handles up to 50,000 rows in List A per run and up to 100,000 rows in List B. Here is what happens with lists that size, and what to expect.
What is instant and free #
- Exact matches are found inside Excel, before anything is sent.
- Repeated rows in List A are answered once and share the result.
- Rows that already have a result are skipped on the next run.
On real lists this often removes a good share of the rows before the AI is involved at all.
Whole list or shortlist #
When List B has up to 200 different entries, the AI sees the whole of List B for every row. When it has more, the add-in first picks the 20 closest entries by spelling for each row inside Excel, and the AI chooses among those. That is what makes a List B of 100,000 rows possible.
The one thing a shortlist can miss is a match that shares almost no letters, such as a company renamed completely (Facebook and Meta Platforms). The right entry is then not among the 20, so the row comes back No match rather than a wrong match. For those rows, use Search thoroughly after the run. Or filter List B down to the relevant part (for example one country) so it has 200 entries or fewer and fits the whole-list mode.
Search thoroughly #
When List B has more than 200 different entries (and up to 20,000), the pane offers a second step after the run for the rows without a match, in this form:
“{n} rows have no match. Search all {e} List B entries for them?”
Click Search thoroughly and the AI is asked about every List B entry, up to 200 at a time. It then checks the best candidates once more, and that last answer is what the row gets. This is how a complete rename such as Facebook and Meta Platforms can still be found on a long list.
- Which rows: only rows without a match, that is No match rows and Review rows with an empty Match cell. Rows that already have a match are never touched. Repeated rows are searched once.
- Credits: about one credit per 200 List B entries for each row searched, plus one for the final check when the row has candidates. With 1,000 entries that is usually at most 6 credits per row. Before it starts, the pane shows the maximum credits and an estimated time. If you do not have enough credits, you can search only the first rows that fit.
- Time: it works on 4 rows at a time and shares the pace of the service, so on a long list it takes minutes. The pane shows how many rows are searched and found so far.
- Review: a row found with a confidence below your threshold is marked Review, like in a normal run. Check those rows.
- Stop and search again: Stop search keeps every row that finished. Searched rows are remembered with the results, so they are not offered again; Search again searches them once more and uses credits again.
Lists in other scripts #
Spelling only compares like with like, so the shortlist handles scripts this way:
- Cyrillic and Greek are compared in their Latin spelling, so a Russian name in List A still finds its Latin spelling in a long List B, and the other way round. The AI still sees the original text.
- Other scripts, such as Japanese, Chinese or Arabic, cannot be spelled in Latin this way. When a row and some List B entries are written in different scripts, the add-in adds those entries to the row’s candidates as far as they fit. If they do not all fit and the row finds no match among the ones it saw, it is marked Review, not No match, because the right entry may be one it did not see.
With 200 entries or fewer, none of this applies: every row is compared with the whole list, whatever the script.
How long it takes #
The matching service is shared by all users. It answers a capped number of AI rows per minute, and that cap is shared by everyone who is matching at the time. So a run with thousands of rows that need the AI can take several minutes, and longer when many people are matching at the same time.
- During the run, the pane shows an estimate, such as “About 12 minutes left at the current speed.”
- When the service is busy, the pane shows “Busy right now. Continuing in 20 seconds.” and continues by itself. You do not need to do anything.
- Results are written as they arrive, so you can start reviewing the first rows while the rest are still running.
- Keep Excel and the task pane open until the run finishes. If you close them or cancel, every finished row is kept, and the next run continues with the rest.
More on this in Runs are slow or say Busy right now.