Microsoft's new era of AI PCs — called Copilot+ PCs — was announced on May 20, and the company announced myriad new AI tools coming for them, including advanced AI image generation in Microsoft Paint.
MS Paint for some readers will conjure up memories of struggling mightily to create a passable image with your mouse in Windows, but suffice to say those days are long gone. This new experience, known as Cocreator, is slightly different than Paint's existing Cocreate experience, thanks to the use of a Copilot+ PC's on-device AI capabilities via a powerful NPU. While the old Cocreate could generate images via cloud servers and a token-based system, the new Cocreator tool will be able to generate local results quickly and without limits.
Whether you're trying to create professional art for work or doodle to relax on the weekends, Microsoft Paint's new AI capabilities can augment your abilities to realize your artistic vision fully. Here's how the tool is expected to work.
What can you do with Cocreator in Microsoft Paint?
With Cocreator, you can generate images via AI using text prompts or your own doodles in Microsoft Paint.
So, if you have no idea where you want to start with an image, you give Cocreator a written prompt with as many details as you want. Or, if you know which colors you want to use or where you want specific objects placed, you can quickly sketch something out, and then have AI assist you while taking your existing art into consideration.
Microsoft says that it'll be "easier to create, refine and evolve your ideas in near real time" when using Cocreator in Paint.
That real-time response is only capable right now because of Qualcomm's powerful Snapdragon X Elite chip and its NPU capable of 45 TOPS. In the future, more Copilot+ PCs will be available with chips from Intel and AMD, but the Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus chips are the only options currently.
In the demo, Microsoft also showed off a 'creativity slider' that'll allow users to customize how much they want AI to alter their original artwork. Cocreator can create an image completely from scratch, only slightly change your artwork's colors, or insert a small element you forgot to add.
Here's a short clip that demonstrates how the new feature will work. In the clip, Cocreator takes a colored outline of a turtle and coral reefs in the ocean and turns it into an animated masterpiece.
Check out our coverage of Microsoft Build 2024 to see what other new AI features and hardware the company has announced.
