Windows 11 apps, including Paint, expected to receive AI features

Forward-looking: Is there anything companies won't shoehorn AI into? According to a new report, the venerable Paint is one of several Windows 11 apps that will receive artificial intelligence upgrades, introducing a Bing-style generative image creation feature.

Windows Central's sources say that Microsoft is continuing to push more AI features into Windows 11. There's already the AI-based personal assistant, Copilot, that's expected to arrive this fall, and it appears several built-in apps are getting AI upgrades, including Photos, the Snipping Tool, and Paint.

In the case of Paint, the addition of generative AI tech will allow users to ask the program to create an image based on their description. The feature will be based on the same technology behind Bing's Image Creator, which does the same thing.

The Snipping Tool's new AI smarts will reportedly be the addition of optical character recognition (OCR) technology. This will allow it to identify text in screenshots, making it easier to copy and paste text. OCR is also coming to the camera app so the same feature will work on photos.

The Photos app is said to be receiving an upgrade that will be familiar to mobile users. Its AI integration will allow the app to identify people or objects in photos and let users cut and paste them into other areas.

There was an outcry in 2017 following news that Microsoft planned to remove Paint from Windows and make it standalone app in the Microsoft Store, hoping that Paint 3D would take its place. The company went back on its decision: Paint got its first big overhaul in a decade in June, while Paint 3D was deprecated.

Microsoft is going all-in on artificial intelligence right now, which isn't really a surprise given the billions of dollars it has invested in ChatGPT maker OpenAI. Copilot is expected to be a headline AI feature. The Edge and Bing Chat-powered assistant can be launched directly from the Taskbar and appears as a sidebar that can be quickly accessed when you need help. It's available to try now for those in the Windows Insider Dev channel.