In an era of distractions, Microsoft wants AI to be your coworker

That's not the way you'd expect billionaire and mogul Bill Gates to talk about the current state of business software--especially since Microsoft's productivity tools, including Word and Excel, helped build his fortune. But Gates believes that today's business software isn't much better than business tools from pre-digital times. "I'd say most of the opportunity to make computers improve work is in front of us rather than behind us," he told a room full of Microsoft researchers and academics at the Microsoft Research Summit in July. While Microsoft Office is definitely way more powerful than Wite-Out, Gates is right to be optimistic about the ways that computers can continue to change the way people work. Artificial intelligence could soon bring productivity tools to an inflection point.