In a support article, Microsoft has confirmed that in some situations, Quick Steps in classic Outlook can appear grayed out. The workaround (if rolling back or switching clients isn't an option) is to use a keyboard shortcut. "The shortcut will work even if the Quick Step is grayed out in the user interface," Microsoft wrote.
At the low end, this looks like the "deep research" tools AI firms have already released that search the web and synthesize information on your behalf, attempting to automate the task of using Google. More theoretically, it might mean models trained to use productivity software in a work context, which may then be used to attempt to automate increasingly complicated jobs.
Windeck and Aidan Guo, 19, launched Attention Engineering earlier this year to build a next-generation desktop assistant powered by AI. "It's not exactly a desktop assistant, but kind of becomes one: ambient, proactive, and personally understands you," Guo said. "It can surface a lot of insights like how you use your time," he said. In the coming months, the tool will be able to automate everything you do on your computer, like a "cursor for everything," he said.
