Microsoft might bring generative AI to Paint and Photos

Microsoft has spent the past year slapping AI copilots onto every major product in its catalog. Now, it looks like that wave is finally trickling down into the modest, everyday tools you actually click on every morning.

According to a report from Windows Central, Microsoft is actively experimenting with baking AI features directly into several core Windows 11 apps, including Photos, Snipping Tool, Camera, and even Paint.

Smarter screenshots and generative Paint

The features under testing are focused squarely on convenience.

Snipping Tool and the Camera app are both reportedly getting built-in optical character recognition (OCR). That means Windows will be able to detect text inside any screenshot or captured photo, letting you copy and paste text straight to your clipboard without third-party utilities.

The native Photos app is also testing object and person segmentation, allowing users to cut subjects out of pictures and paste them elsewhere. It is essentially the same one-tap cutout trick that iPhone and Android users have enjoyed for months.

Then there is Paint. Microsoft is reportedly experimenting with integrating generative AI into the classic drawing app, letting users generate images right on the canvas using text prompts, similar to Bing Image Creator. A one-click background removal tool is also on the table.

According to the report, not all machines will run these features the same way. Some will reportedly require dedicated silicon, like a Neural Processing Unit (NPU) or Vision Processing Unit (VPU), while others will run without specialized chips.

The real overhaul waits for 2024

None of this is officially shipping just yet. The capabilities are still in internal testing, and it remains unclear when or if all of them will hit public builds.

We might learn more soon, though. Microsoft is hosting an event on September 21, where it plans to announce new Surface hardware and share more details on Windows AI plans.

Sources cited in the report also noted that these app-level tweaks are relatively surface-level. The much deeper, system-wide AI integration is reportedly pegged for the next major platform release of Windows scheduled for 2024.

Why it matters

Putting AI inside default utilities is, in our view, far smarter than forcing everyone into a chat sidebar.

Most people do not want to talk to an assistant just to grab text off an invoice or cut a person out of a photo. Putting OCR straight into Snipping Tool and one-click subject cutouts into Photos fixes friction right where work happens, saving users from hunting down sketchy web converters or ad-riddled utilities.

Revisiting Paint with generative image creation and background removal is equally clever. It turns an app people usually ignore into an accessible playground for quick mockups.

The catch lies in the hardware barrier. Tying smoother capabilities to NPUs or VPUs could leave millions of existing PC owners out in the cold. It looks like an early play to nudge the entire ecosystem toward newer hardware.

For third-party app developers who make a living selling lightweight OCR tools and background-removal apps, this should serve as a loud warning bell. When the OS eats the utility layer, niche tools have to offer a lot more than basic tricks to survive.