- Paint is getting two new features, which are currently being tested
- The first allows AI to create animations from an image or sketch
- The second allows you to perform a complex edit on an image with a simple one-line prompt to the AI.
Microsoft is beefing up the Paint app in Windows 11 with a few new AI capabilities, one of which makes it easy to create short animations, and another that’s heavily tinged with yellow (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 features.
The new “Animate” option can be clicked to turn any image (or sketch) into a full animation, with the AI doing the heavy lifting.
Based on Windows Latest testing – the tech site shows two examples – there is still a long way to go here, however. The feature doesn’t ask for any prompts, so there is no control over the end result, the AI simply decides which direction to take.
And in the case of the example photo of Pikachu flying through the night sky, the final animation based on it goes off the rails. It’s good at first, then the weirdness sets in towards the end.
Paint’s second feature is “Generative Edit,” which, Gemini Nano Banana style, lets you take an image and apply a complex edit to it via a simple AI request. Windows Latest shows an example of taking a banana and turning the background into a “fruit jungle” – and it works great.
Analysis: generation game
Both of these capabilities take some time to achieve in the examples provided by Windows Latest and, as noted, the results can go wrong, but these are still early tests. We’re told that Microsoft uses its own internal model to create animations, so if you thought it was based on third-party technology, apparently not.
We can’t even be sure that these AI features will ever leave testing, but it’s probably a reasonable bet. These are obvious features to include in Paint, an application that is gradually becoming more AI-rich and more complex in general.
If you’re wondering how to join Windows AI Labs to access these kinds of experimental features, you’ll need to sign up for the program. However, at the moment, invitations are only issued to select Windows 11 testers, so you need to be a Windows Insider – you will then see an invitation appear at some point in Paint (like Windows Latest did). So for now, all you can do is sit and wait (and join the Windows Insider Program if you’re not already a member).
Note that AI Labs is Paint-only to start, but it will eventually integrate other Windows 11 apps (Photos is likely next in line).
There are already many AI features in Paint, the main one being Cocreator, as well as various other capabilities. Microsoft isn’t afraid to make its default Windows 11 apps more complicated these days, as noted, and Paint is moving a lot away from its original concept as a basic image editor. The same goes for Notepad, much to the chagrin of some people.
