[landon32]

I think usually if a problem is more solvable by a neural network than a decision tree, there is an underlying reason. Neural nets and decision trees work in very different ways.

Take image classification as an example. CNNs can do it by finding nonlinear patterns that exist. A decision tree would have a very tough time doing it because the pixels have a complicated relationship with each other that defines what the image is of.

I think for something like the data transformations we're talking about a Neural Network would be pretty over kill. It looks like this feature in excel works by comparing the data to pre-defined formats, which is probably done by searching all known formats in a somewhat intelligent (not ai, just intelligent) way so that it's fast. Then it can output that type of data in whatever form you want.

Your comment gave me an interesting idea though: What if we put neural networks inside of decision trees?