[AI SPRINT] Microsoft Office Is Dying (and Elon Smells Blood) + ChatGPT Updates

I’m placing a bold bet: Microsoft Office, the long-standing backbone of workplaces, is on its way out. By 2027, Microsoft will transform Office into a Copilot-centered AI platform that absorbs its core functions. By 2035 at the latest, the classic suite will be retired entirely.

This shift isn’t just Microsoft moving away from its historical knowledge-worker apps—it’s a race to define the tools workers need in an AI-forward world. In this future, people won’t spend their days creating most of their content; instead, they’ll oversee and direct AIs.

I imagine this future playing out on an AI Work Surface: not productivity apps you toil inside, but a layer where AI highlights the actions you need to take, provides visibility into ongoing work, and assists in completing it. Gone is Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and maybe even Teams.

Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude are already giving us glimpses of this future, chipping away at Microsoft’s productivity empire with not only writing interfaces, but also data analysis and other functions Office once owned. And now Elon Musk has announced Macrohard, aimed squarely at disrupting Microsoft’s dominance with an AI-first vision.

In this week’s edition, we’ll cover both shifts—and share the latest updates to ChatGPT. But first, some news from us at Stellis AI.

Stellis AI Team Grows

I’m thrilled to welcome four new members to the Stellis AI Advisory team! As AI transforms work and more of you ask for support—from AI strategy to implementation—we’re expanding to deliver. Please welcome Chalam, Lou, Brett, and Lia, who bring fresh expertise to guide your AI journey.

• Chalam Plachikkat is an ex-Amazon product leader who has led AI strategy and execution across organizations ranging from early-stage startups to large enterprises. His grounded approach to innovation and transformation has driven 2–10X growth while sparking energy and purpose in teams.  

• Lou Bajuk is a product strategy and marketing leader with 25+ years in AI, data science, and analytics. He helps leaders cut through ambiguity, shape clear strategies, and harness AI for real-world impact—turning big ideas into actionable plans and building resilient teams that deliver lasting growth.

• Brett Cocking is a technology sales and solutions specialist who built and ran the AWS Global IoT Sales team for three years. He brings deep expertise in the intersection of IoT, AI, and business strategy across industries including manufacturing, healthcare, government, automotive, and sustainability.

• Lia Mar-Lundeen is an emerging leader in human-centered design and product strategy. Currently at the University of Washington, she contributes her expertise to Stellis AI’s new Workshops and Seminars program, bringing fresh perspective and a focus on user-driven innovation.

AI should be paying off. If you’re seeing the opposite—unclear strategy, no leadership alignment, frustrated staff—drop us a note. One day is all it takes to change that.

Why the Office Suite Can’t Survive AI

When AI can handle 60% or more of a knowledge worker’s job—and agents cover much of the rest—we stop being content producers and become managers of AIs. Our tools will need to shift to support that role, putting greater emphasis on monitoring, managing exceptions, and orchestrating work done by others.

For example:

• No more Microsoft Word. You’ll write directly in partnership with AI. Tools like ChatGPT, Grok, and Claude already offer writing and editing inside their apps, and their capabilities are accelerating.

• No more Microsoft Outlook. When AI is doing the work, it won’t bury you in emails—it will deliver only the notifications you need. Your coworkers’ agents will do the same.

• No more Microsoft PowerPoint. If AI can generate polished slides instantly, why open another app? And do you need slides anyway, when you have real-time access to information from your AI?

• No more Microsoft Excel. AI will handle your data analysis, dashboards, and visualizations on the fly, without you struggling with formula syntax.

Even Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, acknowledged this, In an interview, he asked: “Why do I need Excel?” and outlined a vision for how Copilot subsumes much of today’s day-to-day functionality. He’s just hoping they get there first to keep their $70 billion cash cow.

The AI Work Surface: A New Vision

The future of work isn’t a stack of disconnected apps—it’s an AI Work Surface. Instead of producing every piece of content ourselves, we’ll manage a network of AI agents that carry out most of the work. Our role shifts to managing by exception: AIs handle tasks end-to-end and alert us only when human judgment is needed.

This surface becomes the single pane of glass for work. It gives leaders and teams visibility into everything being done—projects in motion, tasks completed, issues flagged—so progress is transparent in real time. The emphasis shifts from “what do I need to do next?” to “what has the AI already done, and where does it need me?”

And it won’t be limited to text. The interface will be multimodal: chat for quick direction, voice for in-the-moment input, visuals for dashboards and design, and interactive summaries that adapt on demand. Work becomes less about clicking through applications and more about guiding and supervising a digital workforce that knows when to pull you in.

Think about how this changes roles:

• A manager doesn’t chase status updates; their Work Surface surfaces risks and next actions.

• A sales lead doesn’t run reports; their AI highlights at-risk accounts and drafts outreach for approval.

• A product team doesn’t stitch together tools; their AI agents track user feedback, update roadmaps, and escalate when priorities conflict.

In short: the AI Work Surface is less a tool you “use” and more an environment you oversee—a workspace that works for you.

Macrohard: Elon’s Bold Vision

Microsoft isn’t the only one moving in this direction. On Friday, Elon Musk announced his cheekily-named Macrohard, a platform aimed squarely at dethroning Microsoft. His vision: software made entirely by AI, with no human coders in the loop. Musk’s bet is that AI agents can create production-ready code, letting tools adapt in real time to what users need.

This isn’t just another competitor to Microsoft—it’s a direct challenge to the very idea of static software. It offers a vision of work that’s fluid, intuitive, and AI-first—even hyper-personalized to each person’s individual needs and preferences. With Musk’s track record of overturning industries, Macrohard could be the spark that forces productivity into a new era (and wipes a trillion or two in MSFT market cap).

Why This Matters

AI Work Surfaces free us from app silos. Instead of one vendor lock-in, we’ll orchestrate a digital workforce across many AI and tool providers—choosing the right AI for each task while staying informed in real time.

AI agents won’t just support work; they’ll partner in it, coordinating efforts and taking ownership of tasks. The result will be a more vibrant, competitive ecosystem: more choice, better tools, and workplaces where technology adapts to us, not the other way around.

ChatGPT Updates

Here’s the latest on ChatGPT’s latest AI updates, all recently announced:

• GPT-5 Updates: After a rocky launch, GPT-5 is now more personable and smarter. Plus, you can enable Legacy Models if you want direct control over which model it is using. Personally, I think it has improved significantly in the last two weeks.

• Chat With Google and Microsoft Products: Although still in beta, now, you can ‘chat’ with your email and calendar in both Google and Microsoft environments, by just enabling the relevant Connectors in your settings. After you enable them, chat with them by saying things like “Summarize today’s emails in Gmail” (or Outlook email).

• Project Memory Isolation: Solving a persistent problem, ChatGPT Projects can now stay focused only on the information available to them. When setting up a project, choose “Project-only” to accomplish this. Note you need to ensure you have Reference Saved Memories enabled in Settings.

About Trent: Trent Gillespie is an AI Keynote Speaker, CEO of Stellis AI, former Amazon leader, and advisor on building AI-Native, AI-Enabled businesses. Book Trent to speak to your group or book a call to discuss using AI within your business.

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