How Microsoft would like to make Paint really powerful

A leak reveals that Microsoft would like to integrate artificial intelligence in the Photos application of Windows 11 as well as in Paint. Enough to identify objects, but also to create drawings and images directly on your PC.

It’s the year of artificial intelligence for Microsoft. The firm has invested ten billion dollars in OpenAI, is in the process of launching Copilot, its personal assistant and is working on voice generation models. 2023 isn’t over, and Microsoft has AI announcements planned for next month. What if the company mentioned the arrival of AI on the Windows 11 Photos application and on Paint?

Windows 11 could see even more AI coming

This is journalist Zac Bowden from Windows Central which reveals that according to its information, Microsoft “ plans to add AI functionality to a handful of Windows 11 apps “. This would concern Photos, the screenshot tool, as well as Paint. At least some of the query processing tasks would be handled by users’ computers.

For Zac Bowden, some of these features would require dedicated hardware, such as an NPU, for Neuronal Processing Unit, more commonly known as an AI accelerator. It is a microprocessor designed to operate neural networks, used by AIs. Another chip you might need: a VPU, for Vision Processing Unit, the equivalent of an NPU, but for the ” vision » AIs.

Windows 11’s Photos app could look more like One UI’s Gallery

The Photos app should allow “ identify objects or people in the photos and cut and paste these elements elsewhere. This is unmistakably reminiscent of the Gallery stickers feature on One UI 5.1. A function that is also found on iOS 16, which allows you to cut out an element of a photo. Enough to create stickers that can be stuck on any other photo.

As for the screen capture tool, it could integrate OCR (optical character recognition) technology. This would identify text in screenshots in order to copy them and save the text wherever desired. It should also be integrated into the Camera application. A function found for example on Google Lens, very practical for copying text from a physical panel for example.

Is the Paint revolution here?

Zac Bowden’s sources indicate that ” Microsoft also experimented with introducing generative AI to Windows 11’s Paint app. This would allow tables to be created based on user-defined criteria. A function that is already found in Bing, with Bing Image Creator, which allows you to generate images. It would also be the same technology that would be used.

However, we do not know when all these new AI features will arrive in Windows 11, if they ever arrive. According to Windows Central, they are all at the experimental stage. Maybe Microsoft will unveil a little on September 21 at its presentation conference for new Surface products. We can also think that these features will arrive in 2024 with Windows 12. As a reminder, Microsoft is preparing this next version of its OS, which should integrate more AI.

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