Microsoft's next AI feature for Windows 11's Paint app could be a real stroke of genius

Microsoft might be planning a very smart AI-powered feature for the Paint app in Windows 11.

If you recall, yesterday we reported on clues that pointed to a mysterious AI feature in Paint, and PhantomOfEarth on X (formerly Twitter) posted that this capability might be something called 'LiveCanvas.'

While the leaker didn't profess to know what this could be, MS Power User (via TechRadar) made the interesting observation that LiveCanvas is a generative AI tool in Leonardo.Ai.

What LiveCanvas in Leonardo.Ai does is to create art in real-time as you're drawing something. What that means in practice is that you get two panels, side-by-side, and you can sketch little doodles which the AI will flesh out into a fully realized image.

There's an example on YouTube where the creator wants to draw the head of a green alien, so they start off with a green blob and a couple of black eyes. The AI doesn't get what they're driving at, so telling it with text that they want to create a 'green alien' then prompts LiveCanvas to create a very smart, detailed alien head.

So, this is AI image generation which is sketch-based and complemented with text prompts from the user when required.

Is this likely to be a feature included with Paint? Of course, the app already has image generation thanks to Cocreator (powered by Dall-E), but this would be a more in-depth system than mere text prompts.

It does seem a pretty advanced piece of functionality for a basic Windows 11 app, and really, we have no idea if the LiveCanvas feature mentioned by PhantomOfEarth will relate to the tool in Leonardo.Ai anyway. (Although it doesn't seem an unreasonable bet).

All of these leaks around a potential new AI feature may come to nothing ultimately, but it's possible that some pretty nifty powers are coming to Paint, which will be driven by the NPUs now popping up in CPUs all over the place.

• Read more: Windows 11's Copilot AI might take over your desktop in the future
• Read more: Microsoft urged to extend Windows 10's lifespan or face 'biggest jump in junked computers ever'