Did AI spreadsheet cleanup turn ‘not reported’ into zero?

A branch that hasn't sent its sales report isn't a branch that sold nothing. I'd be wary of asking an AI assistant to ‘fill the gaps’ in that spreadsheet without saying what the gaps mean. Microsoft's existing Excel guide says AVERAGE ignores empty cells in a range but includes cells containing zero. Replacing blanks with zeros can therefore change the result without changing the formula. Leaving blanks alone doesn't make the report complete, either: the average then covers only the numeric entries available. Before circulating a branch comparison, I'd keep ‘not reported’ separate from an actual zero and say which branches are missing. Ask the assistant to flag the gaps, not invent results to make the sheet look finished. This is documented Excel behavior, not a mistake I've reproduced in an AI product. The person chasing the missing report should still have a missing report to chase—not a tidy number that makes a colleague look worse.