Microsoft's latest AI feature for Paint lets users create custom Coloring Book pages

Microsoft's simple digital drawing and image creation app, Paint, is continuing to get an AI makeover, with the company announcing a new feature for Windows Insiders that will leverage image-generation tools to let users create a Coloring Book. And that's precisely what the new tool is called, with Coloring Book letting users "create unique coloring book pages from a text prompt."

2

Paint's new AI-powered Coloring Book tool, image credit: Microsoft.

Basically, it's an AI image generation that creates black ink drawings in the style of a children's coloring book, with Microsoft explaining that once you enter text like "a cute fluffy cat on a donut" or "a house with a garden and fence" and then hit the Generate button, you'll be presented with your creation.

• Read more: Notepad now lets you create tables, but is it one feature too many for this simple app?
• Read more: Microsoft adds a generative AI feature to Notepad, its simple text editor
• Read more: These Copilot+ PC features now work on AMD Ryzen AI and Intel Core Ultra laptops

To complement this new feature, Paint is also getting expanded Fill controls with a new 'tolerance slider' that gives users direct control over how much color (in percentage) is applied. Although not exactly essential, the new Coloring Book feature does sound like it could be fun for families to use, as it opens the door to a seemingly limitless ability to generate different Coloring Book pages.

Once it goes live, this feature will only be available on Copilot+ PCs, and you will need to sign in to a Microsoft account to use it. With most GeForce RTX desktop and laptop rigs having exponentially more AI power than the NPUs found in Copilot+ PCs, it still feels weird that after all this time, most of Windows 11's AI features are limited to Copilot+ PCs.

In addition to adding another AI tool to Paint, Microsoft is also updating Notepad to add strikethrough formatting and support for nested lists. The updated Paint (version 11.2512.191.0) and Notepad (version 11.2512.10.0) apps are available now for Windows Insiders in the Canary and Dev Channels on Windows 11.