Microsoft, Adobe Bring AI Smarts to Mainstream Apps
- By Paul Mah
- October 19, 2022
Microsoft is adding AI-generated art to its Office suite, according to an announcement last week. This feature will be available as part of the new Canva-like web app called Microsoft Designer, which can generate designs for presentations, posters, digital postcards, invitations, and graphics.
Microsoft Designer
Within Designer, users can choose from various templates to get started on designs for platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook ads, or Instagram Stories. Various prebuilt templates are also available from the web, as well as shapes, photos, icons, and headings that can be added to projects.
“With Designer, there’s no need to spend time building cards or social media posts from scratch. And you no longer need to search through thousands of pre-made templates. Designer invites you to start with an idea and let the AI do the heavy lifting,” said the software giant in a blog post.
According to Microsoft, users simply describe the image they want to see (write the prompt), and the app will create something “totally unique”.
Indeed, Microsoft promised that “every surface of the app is powered by AI to help ensure consistent, aligned, properly scaled, and beautiful designs, even with or without any inherent design ability.”
Microsoft Designer is not yet generally available, though users can join a waitlist to get the chance to preview it. Microsoft says Designer will eventually be available as a free standalone app and a more full-featured version available to paying Office 365 subscribers.
Adobe Photoshop
Separately, Adobe today introduced new AI features to its popular Adobe Photoshop image editor. According to Adobe, the newly integrated AI features will enable greater automation and increase efficiency when it comes to repetitive Photoshop tasks.
This includes features such as “one-click delete and fill” to select and remove objects from images in one step and one-click background removal. The beta Photo Restoration Neural Filter also offers the ability to restore old or damaged photos by leveraging machine learning to intelligently eliminate scratches and other imperfections in old photos.
In a recent report, analyst firm Forrester noted that spending on AI software will grow 50 percent faster than the overall software market over the next two years. It delineated spending on AI into the following: AI-infused software – such as those by Microsoft and Adobe, AI tools, and AI-centric software.
Image credit: DALL-E 2
Paul Mah
Paul Mah is the editor of DSAITrends, where he report on the latest developments in data science and AI. A former system administrator, programmer, and IT lecturer, he enjoys writing both code and prose.