I need to turn Excel into a lightweight analytics hub that pulls data from our internal databases as well as selected external APIs, then applies generative-AI assistance to speed up exploration and insight generation. The focus for this first release is purely descriptive analytics, so every feature you build should aim to answer “what happened?” and “how much?” rather than forecasting or optimization. Here is what I expect when we are done: • Automated connections that refresh data from the specified internal tables and the authorised APIs without manual intervention. • Clean data model inside Excel (or Power Query / Power Pivot) that feeds three output layers: – summary statistics & KPI dashboards, – interactive charts and graphs, – on-demand custom reports generated through a simple prompt box powered by a large-language-model add-in. • Clear instructions so a non-technical analyst on my team can extend or modify data sources and visual themes. Feel free to script the heavy lifting in Python, VBA, Power Automate or any combination you prefer, as long as the final experience for day-to-day users lives inside Excel. Think of this as the groundwork; later phases may branch into predictive or prescriptive analytics, so structure the solution with future modules in mind. Let me know your preferred tech stack for the AI layer, the security approach for database credentials, and a realistic timeline for delivering a working prototype followed by an iteration round.