I haven't posted about M1 Macbooks in a while. Feels like I have a whole new cohort of followers who haven't been lectured to.
Buy an M1 Macbook Air. It's like the end of history computer.
Something may be wrong with your setup if everyone else is amazed with how fast the M1 is.
I know I had to reinstall photoshop to get the M1 version after using the migration utility to get everything on the new laptop. Is it possible you're running x86 office/chrome?
Most software packages now have a version for intel macs and a version for M1 macs. I used the migration feature to load everything on my new M1 mac but had to uninstall and reinstall a few things that were made for Intel macs to get the M1 version. Makes stuff go faster.