At Ignite 2022, Microsoft announced a big integration for DALL∙E 2 in Azure DevOps Service, building on the company's powerful partnership with OpenAI. During that coverage, the company announced that the integration will also have a consumer face on Windows 11. The Microsoft Designer app we have been following this year will allow AI art to be created using DALL∙E 2 technology.
That Designer app was first spotted through a leak online, before Microsoft provided some later information about the app. However, what the company never said was what the app would actually be.
Now, we know that it delivers DALL∙E 2 benefits on Windows 11 to provide AI art capabilities. It essentially works as an editor with drag-and-drop functionality. Microsoft is positioning it as a rival to apps such as Canva.
Available in Microsoft Office, the tool allows users to create illustrative components. Features include text editing, templates, and stock images and videos. Even so, it is DALL∙E 2 that will attract users.
DALL∙E 2
The AI specialises in generating realistic images from art and adding a natural language description to them.
To develop the DALL∙E 2 AI, Microsoft built a supercomputer exclusive for OpenAI that runs on Azure. This is the same supercomputer that also trained OpenAI's GPT-3. Microsoft has an exclusive license of the GPT-3 API with OpenAI. Microsoft was also a $1 billion investor in OpenAI, which allows Azure to power all cloud services from the open-source AI provider.
This is a nice addition, but a skilled graphic designer is still better. AI image generators are getting better – and DALL∙E 2 is fantastic – but the images they create are still slightly off. For example, human subjects have blurs and strange features.
Tip of the day: The Windows Sandbox gives Windows 10/11 Pro and Enterprise users a safe space to run suspicious apps without risk. In out tutorial we show you how to enable the Windows Sandbox feature.
