diff --git a/src/crewai/knowledge/source/excel_knowledge_source.py b/src/crewai/knowledge/source/excel_knowledge_source.py
index 32747bc7c2..ad73af2400 100644
--- a/src/crewai/knowledge/source/excel_knowledge_source.py
+++ b/src/crewai/knowledge/source/excel_knowledge_source.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Dict, List
+from pydantic import Field
 
 from crewai.knowledge.source.base_file_knowledge_source import BaseFileKnowledgeSource
 
@@ -7,6 +8,9 @@
 class ExcelKnowledgeSource(BaseFileKnowledgeSource):
     """A knowledge source that stores and queries Excel file content using embeddings."""
 
+    # override content to be a dict of file paths to sheet names to csv content
+    content: Dict[Path, Dict[str, str]] = Field(default_factory=dict)
+
     def load_content(self) -> Dict[Path, Dict[str, str]]:
         """Load and preprocess Excel file content from multiple sheets.