- Paint gets two new functions which are being tested
- The first lets AI create animations from an image or sketch
- The other allows for complex editing of an image with a simple one-line prompt to the AI
Microsoft is beefing up the Paint app in Windows 11 with a couple of new AI abilities, one of which makes it easy to compose short animations, and another is very yellow hues (by which I mean: think Google’s Nano Banana).
Windows Latest reports that both features are part of Windows AI Labs, which is the proving ground for testing AI-based functionality.
The new ‘Animate’ option can be clicked to turn any image (or sketch) into a full animation, with AI doing the hard work therein.
Based on Windows Seneste’s testing — the tech site shows two examples — there’s still a fair way to go here, though. The feature doesn’t ask for any prompt, so there’s no control over the end result, the AI just decides which direction to take.
And in the case of the sample image of Pikachu flying through the night sky, the finished animation based on this goes off track. It’s okay to start with, then the weirdness creeps in towards the end.
The other feature coming to Paint is ‘Generative Edit’ which, in Gemini Nano Banana style, allows you to take a photo and apply a complex edit to it via a simple AI query. Windows Latest shows an example of taking a banana and turning the background into a “fruit jungle” – and it actually works very well.
Analysis: generational play
Both of these capabilities take quite a while to be realized in the Windows Latest samples, and as mentioned the results can be skewed, but this is still early testing. We’re told Microsoft uses its own internal model to create animations, so if you thought it was based on third-party technology, apparently it’s not.
We can’t even be sure that these AI features will ever leave the test, but it’s probably a fair bet. They’re obvious pieces of functionality to look to include in Paint, an app that’s getting progressively more packed with AI and more complex overall.
If you’re wondering how to join Windows AI Labs to access this kind of experimental functionality, you’ll need to sign up for the program. But right now invites are only rolling out to select Windows 11 testers, so you’ll need to be a Windows Insider – then you’ll see an invite pop up at some point in Paint (like Windows Latest did). So for now, all you can do is hang in there and wait (and join the Windows Insider program if you’re not already a member).
Note that AI Labs is only for Paint to begin with, but it will eventually incorporate other Windows 11 apps (Photos is likely next).
There are already quite a few AI features in Paint, the main one being Cocreator, along with various other abilities. Microsoft isn’t afraid to make its standard Windows 11 apps more complicated these days, as mentioned, and Paint is moving a lot away from its original concept as a basic image editor. The same is the case with Notepad, much to the chagrin of some people.
