- Microsoft used Copilot to generate images for “how-to” articles
- Some of these photos have gone wrong, showing parts of the Windows 11 interface with glaring errors.
- It’s embarrassing to say the least, and perhaps confusing to the less tech-savvy.
Microsoft uses AI to generate screenshots to accompany its “how-to” articles, and with some of these screenshots getting painfully wrong, it’s effectively a lesson in how not to use AI.
These educational guides are found in the Windows Learning Center and are useful tutorials, although, as Windows Latest points out, many articles contain images generated by Copilot.
We know this because the captions accompanying these images state that this is “AI art created via Copilot”, and so this is really Microsoft’s way of advertising its AI’s ability to generate images. Or try to, anyway.
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The problem is that the AI sometimes made mistakes. As Windows Latest notes, there’s a major misstep with the article regarding using widgets in Windows 11, where a screenshot provided shows a completely different-looking widget panel.
While an experienced user will realize that this is just an illustrative example, less knowledgeable people may not – perhaps to the point where they will start to wonder why their widget panel is completely different, or even how they get it to change to this seemingly alternative format.
So it’s misleading, but there are worse offenders. TweakTown highlighted other examples, including one in which the AI hallucinated and produced two Start menu icons on the taskbar.
This is present with the Snipping Tool tutorial, or it was, as Microsoft has now removed the image (unsurprisingly). Technically, the duplicate Start buttons weren’t actually the same, and one of them isn’t a Start button at all (if you zoom in), but they appear to be at first glance. And one is on the left, while the second – and all other icons – are centered in the taskbar, which makes no sense. (You can align taskbar icons left or center, but not both.)
Clearly the AI has gone awry with a number of screenshots, and TweakTown cites other examples, including one of a person playing a game on a laptop using a controller, seemingly engaged in this pursuit, but looking away from the screen towards the other side of the room. Oops.
Analysis: residual ammunition
Microsoft has no shortage of money in its coffers to pay for photo shoots to get these kinds of images, of course, so it’s not a good look. That said, it seems like the company is using these images to promote Copilot’s image-making skills, but if that’s the case, the low-quality examples where things just aren’t right make a good impression here. As we observed at the outset, this is more of a warning, showing how the use of AI can be derailed.
Importantly, if Microsoft wants to use AI in this way, one would imagine there would be a human editor checking the quality of the images and making sure they fit the article without glaring issues. So this either didn’t happen, or the supervisor of these AI creations did a poor job of quality control.
The bottom line is that it seems like Microsoft is rushing in and cutting corners with the AI here, and that’s giving ammunition directly to the “Microslop” crowd. These are flawed, poorly quality-controlled AI images that were used without sufficient thought. While not all of the images are problematic, there are enough of them that it seems unfortunate, to say the least.
Microsoft needs to be more disciplined in how it uses AI, and you’d think the company would be well aware of this in light of the “Microslop” nickname that popped up in early 2026. Unfortunately not, it seems, and that leads to the kind of comment made by this Redditor: “It’s like all their creativity has been ruined by AI…”
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