Microsoft added AI to software it has barely touched since 1985. The results are astonishing

By John Towfighi, CNN

(CNN) — If your artistic style is more stick-figure than Picasso, Microsoft has a remedy to boost your creativity: adding artificial intelligence to its Paint application.

The company is rolling out new AI tools for Paint as part of a Windows 11 update.

Microsoft — like its Big Tech competitors — is introducing AI to its consumer products, from virtual chatbot assistants to notetaking and editing tools.

But … MS Paint? It’s one of the simplest applications Microsoft produces and has changed little since it was introduced in 1985. It’s as rudimentary as it gets.

But that could be the point: A promise of AI is to help people save time on tasks. If you need something that looks sharp but don’t have the ability to do it yourself, using the most basic app to create something beautiful is … well, kind of what AI is made for.

And one of the most enduring elements of the AI boom has been the intrigue of AI-generated artwork.

Since the initial launch of OpenAI’s Dall-E image creation tool in 2021, the concept of text-to-image artwork — where a user types their idea, and AI produces a corresponding image — has not just captivated people, it’s become a focus of some Big Tech products.

The latest Windows update will give Paint new features like generative fill, a tool that will enable users to add AI-generated graphics to their artwork by typing what they want to see, Dave Grochocki, a product manager at Microsoft, said in a blog post Wednesday. Users will be able to create and edit AI images on top of their own pre-existing artwork.

The update will first be available to people registered in the Windows Insider program, where users can preview new company offerings. To use generative fill, users must also have computers that are equipped with Microsoft Copilot+, the company’s newest iteration of AI software.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for additional comment.

The update will also give more users in Europe access to Image Creator, an AI-image generator introduced to Paint in 2023 and powered by Dall-E, due to Microsoft’s partnership with OpenAI.

Paint is among the latest staple tech apps to incorporate AI, tech that could change so much about art, but so far has produced uses of varying effects – including a plethora of odd, AI-spam on social media.

On Meta’s recent quarterly earnings call, for example, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he was aware of how much AI content was on Facebook and Instagram, and he plans to keep feeding users even more AI-generated images across their feeds.

“I think we’re going to add a whole new category of content, which is AI generated or AI summarized content or kind of existing content pulled together by AI in some way,” Zuckerberg said. “And I think that that’s going to be just very exciting for the – for Facebook and Instagram and maybe Threads or other kind of Feed experiences over time.”

Paint has existed since Microsoft first launched its Windows brand of operating systems in 1985. The artistic application has gone through variations across the decades but has ultimately endured as a core part of Microsoft’s offerings — not to mention a cultural aesthetic of the early digital era and internet boom.

The revamping of Paint is another example of Microsoft aiming to keep an edge in the AI race. In October, Microsoft introduced a sweeping update to its Copilot virtual assistant in an effort to make it more useful and user-friendly, CEO of Microsoft AI Mustafa Suleyman previously told CNN.

Microsoft users will also see AI features in Notepad, Microsoft’s writing platform, allowing them to use the new technology to help rewrite or edit sentences. For example, users can type a sentence, and then prompt the AI tool to rewrite the sentence or modify its tone or length.

In October, Apple unveiled its first set of AI features for the iPhone as part of its iOS 18.1 software update. Apple’s “Writing Tools,” an editing tool, is similar to Microsoft’s AI features in Notepad.

Another new feature in MS Paint is generative erase, which is an AI tool that will let users remove unwanted objects from their image without distorting the background. The generative erase feature is available to all Microsoft PCs with Windows 11.

The-CNN-Wire
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