I am working on a project where I need to populate an Excel file with the road distances between pairs of addresses. I attempted to automate this task using ChatGPT 4o (paid version) to fetch distances from the web and input them into the Excel file. However, the assistant has been unable to complete the task as expected, possibly due to limitations in directly browsing the web or integrating the fetched data back into Excel in real-time.

Here’s the process we’ve tried:

Task Setup: The Excel file contains multiple rows with “Site Address” and “Corresponding Branch Address”. The goal was to find the road distance for each pair and input the results into a new column in the Excel file.

Attempts Made: ChatGPT tried to fetch each distance using web search methods. The idea was to search the distance for each row, input the data into the Excel file, and then proceed to the next row.

Challenges Encountered:

Data Retrieval: ChatGPT could not reliably fetch exact distance data for each address pair, likely due to limitations in simulating a real browser environment or handling dynamic web content.
Data Integration: Integrating the fetched data directly back into the Excel file was not completed as expected, possibly due to a lack of direct access to modify and save files dynamically.

Questions:

1. Are there known limitations with AI or automated systems in handling tasks that require real-time web browsing and data entry into Excel?
2. What tools or softwares could I use to more effectively automate the retrieval and input of such data?
3. Could APIs like Google Distance Matrix be integrated directly into Excel to streamline this process?

I am looking for advice on automating the task either through scripting, using APIs, or any software tool recommendations that can handle dynamic web scraping and direct data manipulation in Excel files.