- Microsoft brings new AI features to Notepad, Paint and Snipper Tool
- Many of these, however, are only for Copilot+ PCs as they require an NPU
- Notepad gets a new AI-driven text creation that comes to all Windows 11 PCs but it needs a Microsoft 365 subscription
Windows 11S Notepad app gets its AI forces expanded to include the ability to generate written content from scratch, and Microsoft delivers new AI-related functionality to two other apps in us, though all this is back in testing for now.
Let’s start with the Notepad, which with the release of version 11,2504.46.0 (in Preview, to Windows 11 testers) adds a new ‘Write’ Option. Just right-click where you want a text to be inserted or anywhere in an empty document if you start with an empty slate and tell the notepad nature of the content you want and it will write something for you.
Windows latest has had a game with the feature in testing and observes that AI tends to keep its generated text on the concise page.
If you are not happy with the results and feel that the AI-created content may be better, you can always choose to use the opportunity to ‘rewrite’ in the notepad, which allows to extend (or shorten) the text or change the tone (and more in addition).
The catch with notepads new AI-driven writing is that it uses what Microsoft calls AI credits.
If you are not a Microsoft 365 or Copilot Pro subscriber, you will not get these credits and it may not be able to use this feature. Those with a Microsoft 365 personal or family plan get 60 AI credits per day. Month to be used across all Microsoft’s apps, so you are limited to the extent you want to be able to exercise this new power.
Away from Notepad, Microsoft has also added new features to the paint app and snippet tool, and yes, as mentioned in the beginning, all this is AI-driven things. Remember that as Microsoft explains in a blog post, the following abilities are mostly also for Copilot+ PCS also (except where I noticed otherwise).
Snipping Tool’s fresh addition is something called ‘Perfect Screenshot’, which allows you to choose an area on the screen that you want to get hold of, but you only need to highlight it roughly. AI will then refine the window that you have drawn to catch, says a photo on the screen. In essence, this makes the heavy lifting in terms of cropping an object exactly, which means you only have to guard it, and AI does the rest – pretty nicely.
A further feature of Snipping Tool (coming to all Windows 11 users in this case) is a color voting ability. These are for those as designers who want to know exactly what any given color is on the screen (so they can match it elsewhere and it is possible to use HEX, RGB or HSL color codes).
As for Paint, Microsoft delivers a new ‘Welcome Experience’ (Initial Panel explaining its latest features), which also comes to everyone, and there are a few new AI tricks here (only to Copilot+ PCs).
First of all, Paint gets an object choice tool that uses AI for, yes, select objects on the canvas. This is (kind of) the equivalent of the snip tool’s option for choosing crops, which means you can just point to an element of the image and AI selects the object exactly so you can then apply edits.
Secondly, there is a new sticker generator that again does what it says on (paint) tin. You tell AI that you want a sticker of a turtle in a leather jacket that plays a ‘Flying V’ guitar, and it will produce a selection of such stickers that you can choose from.
Analysis: Creative Sparks and Time Saving Touches
These are, of course, typical uses of AI, which include content creation – from sections in Notepad to stickers in paint – to time -saving small touches in the form of light selection of items in paint or the quick pruning of a product in a screenshot with snippet tools.
All this should make your life a little easier, but there are reasons to get a bit of a grim here. You need a copilot+ PC in many cases – and okay, it’s because it has the local hardware (an NPU) required to speed up the task so it works fast enough – but the subscription requirement for the notepad feels less reasonable.
More wide, some people will be annoyed by the changes to the Notepad Full-Stop. Mainly because the notpad needs to be a minimalist, streamlined app to shoot up to hire quick notes and the like, and it slowly becomes a mini version of Word. (Or actually a new wordpad that used to be the middle ground between the two apps until Microsoft killed it).
If you thought the Notepad already had AI -Technical Crafts, yes, no, it didn’t. While the app has already witnessed the introduction of a rewrite facility, it is a new thing to create paragraphs from scratch (to this app).
Did the Notepad really need it? Based on that, the move cannot hurt – if you do not want it, do not use it. But the argument against slowly drafting more and more features for the notepad is that this bloating will slow it down, making it less responsive (and even more sluggish to load, maybe).
Everything is pulling a lot in the wrong direction for those who want a small, Quickfire Jotting Pad from an app which, to be fair, was always the original intention of notepad. Not so much, these days, that’s for sure.
