How to Make a Sunburst Chart in Excel with AI

A sunburst chart is one of the best ways to understand hierarchical data, but few people know how to build one. While it looks complex, creating a sunburst chart in Excel is surprisingly manageable once you understand how to structure your data. This guide will walk you through creating one step-by-step, both manually and by using the power of AI to speed up the process.

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What Exactly is a Sunburst Chart?

Think of a sunburst chart as a donut chart on steroids. While a simple donut chart shows the relationship of parts to a whole, a sunburst chart does this for multiple levels of ranked data simultaneously. It’s a powerful visualization for displaying how a central category breaks down into finer sub-categories.

Each level of the hierarchy is represented by a ring or circle. The innermost circle is the top-level category (the "root"), with each outer ring representing a further subdivision. The size of each slice corresponds to its value or proportion within its parent category, making it easy to spot the largest contributors at a glance.

Common Use Cases for Sunburst Charts

Sunburst charts are incredibly versatile for any dataset with a natural parent-child relationship. Some common examples include:

• Sales Data: Visualizing total sales broken down by product category, then sub-category, and finally individual products.
• Budgeting: Showing company-wide expenses broken down by department, then by team, and then by specific spending categories (e.g., software, salaries, travel).
• Website Analytics: Displaying website traffic sources broken down by channel (Organic, Paid, Social), then source/medium (Google, Facebook), and then by specific campaign.
• Organizational Structures: Mapping out a company's departments, teams, and the number of employees in each role.

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Getting Your Data Ready for Excel

This is the most critical step. If your data isn't structured correctly, Excel won’t be able to generate the chart. A sunburst chart needs data organized in columns that represent the hierarchy, from the broadest category on the left to the most specific category on the right, followed by a final column for the numerical values.

Think of it as setting up a path: Level 1 -> Level 2 -> Level 3 -> Value.

Let’s use an example of annual sales for a fictional electronics store. Your data should be laid out in a table like this:

Here, the hierarchy is: Category (Level 1) -> Sub-Category (Level 2) -> Item (Level 3). The fourth column, Sales, contains the numerical values that will determine the size of each slice in the chart.

Important Tip: You can also create a sunburst chart without a final value column. In that case, Excel will simply count the occurrences of each category to determine the slice sizes. However, using a specific value column gives you much more control and insight.

The Traditional Way: How to Make a Sunburst Chart Manually

Once your data is properly formatted, creating the chart itself is just a few clicks away. Excel 2016 and newer versions have the sunburst chart type built-in.

Step 1: Select Your Data

Click and drag to highlight your entire data table, including headers. In our example, you would select all four columns from "Category" down to the last sales figure.

Step 2: Insert the Chart

With your data selected, follow this path in the Excel ribbon:

1. Navigate to the Insert tab.
2. In the Charts group, click on the small icon that says Insert Hierarchy Chart (it looks like a small treemap).
3. From the dropdown menu, select Sunburst.

Excel will instantly generate a sunburst chart based on your data. The innermost ring will represent your first column (Category), the next ring will show the Sub-Category, and the outermost ring will display the individual Items.

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Step 3: Customize Your Sunburst Chart

The default chart is a great starting point, but you’ll probably want to tweak it to make it clearer and more professional. Here are the most common customizations:

• Chart Title: The first thing you should do is give your chart a descriptive title. Click on the default "Chart Title" text box and type in something clear, like "Annual Sales by Product Category."
• Colors: To change the color scheme, click on your chart to bring up the Chart Design tab in the ribbon. Click Change Colors and choose a palette that fits your brand or report. Excel will automatically apply different colors to the top-level categories.
• Data Labels: To add or format labels, right-click on any part of the chart and select Format Data Labels. A pane will open on the right, allowing you to choose what to display (e.g., category name, value). Showing labels on every tiny slice can get messy, so be mindful of clutter.
• Legend: A sunburst chart often works better without a legend, as the labels directly on the chart are more intuitive. You can remove the legend by clicking the plus (+) sign next to the chart and unchecking the "Legend" box.

The Faster Way: Using AI to Create Your Sunburst Chart

Manually creating charts works fine, but what if you could just tell Excel what you want? With the rise of AI tools like Microsoft Copilot for 365 and various Excel add-ins, you can now generate charts using simple, natural language prompts.

The process is built for speed and lets you avoid clicking through menus, which is especially helpful for complex charts like the sunburst.

Step 1: Get Access to an AI Tool

To use AI in Excel, you’ll typically need one of two things:

• Microsoft Copilot: If your organization has a Microsoft 365 subscription with the Copilot add-on, you'll see a Copilot icon in your ribbon.
• AI Add-ins: You can find various AI analytics tools in the Office Add-ins store (Insert > Get Add-ins). Search for terms like "AI chart generator" or "ChatGPT" to find options.

Step 2: Prepare a Clear Prompt

With your data table ready, you can now write a prompt telling the AI tool what to do. The key is to be specific. Instead of vague requests, give the AI clear instructions.

Here are a few example prompts you could use with our sales data:

• "Create a sunburst chart from the data in cells A1:D10."
• "Generate a sunburst chart showing Sales by Category, Sub-Category, and Item."
• "Visualize the sales data in A1:D10 with a sunburst chart and title it 'Annual Sales by Product Category'."

When you submit your prompt, the AI will analyze your data structure, identify the hierarchy, and generate the chart for you, often much faster than doing it manually.

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Step 3: Iterate and Refine with Follow-up Prompts

The magic of using an AI assistant doesn't stop at creation. You can continue the conversation to customize the chart without ever opening a formatting pane. This iterative process is what makes AI so powerful for data analysis.

Try follow-up prompts like:

• "Change the color scheme to be shades of green."
• "Remove the legend from the chart."
• "Add data labels to the second level of the hierarchy."

This allows you to brainstorm and experiment with your visualizations in a fluid, conversational way, skipping the tedious job of finding the right button in the Excel interface.

Advanced Tips for Better Sunburst Charts

Whether you create your chart manually or with AI, here are a few best practices to ensure it’s clear, insightful, and easy to read.

• Don’t Overdo It with Levels: While you can have many rings, sunburst charts become cluttered and unreadable after about 3 or 4 levels. If your hierarchy is deeper, consider breaking the data into multiple charts or using a different visualization like a treemap.
• Sort Your Data: Before creating the chart, sort your data by the value column (e.g., Sales) in descending order. This will group the largest contributors together on the chart, making it much easier to interpret at a glance.
• Use Color Meaningfully: Strategic use of color can elevate your chart from good to great. Use distinct colors for your top-level categories and then related shades for their sub-categories. This creates a clear visual link between a parent slice and its children.
• Provide Context: A chart without context is just a picture. Always include a clear title and, if necessary, a short caption or footnote explaining the data source or what the key takeaway is.

Final Thoughts

Sunburst charts are an excellent tool for making sense of complex hierarchical data in one elegant visualization. Whether you prefer the control of building them manually in Excel or the speed and convenience of using AI, the key is to start with correctly structured data. With a well-organized table, creating an insightful chart is well within your reach.

While Excel is great for these tasks, the process still often involves downloading CSVs and constantly refreshing your data. What's next? Instead of telling Excel how to chart a static file, imagine just asking your live data questions. At Graphed , we connect directly to your marketing and sales platforms (like Google Analytics, Shopify, Facebook Ads) so you're always analyzing real-time data. You can ask "Show me a sunburst chart of my Shopify sales broken down by product category and vendor" and get an interactive, auto-updating dashboard in seconds - no manual data prep or add-ins required.