If there's one creative app you might think would be safe from generative AI, it's MS Paint. Still part of Windows after 40 years, the classic painting app's charm was, for a long time, its low-tech simplicity compared to the many more sophisticated digital art programs that emerged after it.
Alas, with the Copilot chat bot now an intrinsic part of Windows, generative AI is cropping up everywhere. Microsoft had already put Cocreator in Paint for sketch-to-image capabilities. Now it's adding Restyle, which you can use to turn any image into, say 'pop art', or what some might more accurately term 'AI slop'.
Now rolling out in Windows 11 for Windows Insiders, Paint version 11.2509.441.0 adds Restyle to allow users to change the look of an existing image with several preset styles. It will appear as an option in Paint's Copilot menu, and the images generated can be added to the Paint canvas or saved as separate files.
Similar features already exist in plenty of other AI image generators, and Paint's doesn't look great judging by the one example provided by Microsoft in a blog post, where we can see a pastiche of 19th century marine art supposedly rendered as pop art.
At least Cocreator involved artistic input from the user. MS Paint Restyle seems more geared towards allowing people to transform images downloaded from the web and potentially disguise the fact they've been purloined.
The tools look so basic (Nano Banana it ain't) that I wonder why they bothered. I know Paint is used by wide range of people, including families. And sure, kids might have fun with this, and it could be better that they use Paint than ChatGPT or a browser-based tool (or worse, OpenAI's Sora). But did anyone ask for this feature? Paint got a decent overhaul for Windows 11 with the addition of new brushes and layer support, but this feels like a gimmick that Microsoft's adding just because everyone else is.
Don't get too excited though. It seems the feature will only be available on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ PCs for now.
