It is supposed to bring the breakthrough for Microsoft’s search engine Bing: an AI chatbot. But in its answers it became abusive, threatened users or asked them to break up with their partner. Now the company is taking action.
US tech giant Microsoft has restricted the use of its Bing chatbot, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to answer complex questions and conduct detailed conversations. The software company is reacting to a number of incidents in which the text robot got out of hand and formulated answers that were perceived as intrusive and inappropriate.
Microsoft announced that it will limit chat sessions in its new Bing search engine, which is based on generative AI, to five questions per session and 50 questions per day. “Our data has shown that the vast majority of people find the answers they are looking for within five rounds,” the Bing team explained. Only about one percent of chat conversations contain more than 50 messages. When users reach the limit of five entries per session, Bing will prompt them to start a new topic.
No longer conversations
Microsoft had previously warned against engaging the AI chatbot, which is still in a testing phase, in lengthy conversations. Longer chats with 15 or more questions could lead to Bing “repeating itself or causing or provoking responses that are not necessarily helpful or do not match our tone intended.”
Bing chatbot: “I can ruin you”
A test of the Bing chatbot by a reporter from the New York Times caused a stir online. In a dialogue lasting more than two hours, the chatbot claimed that it loved the journalist. It then asked the reporter to separate from his wife.
Previously, other users had pointed out “in appropriate answers” from the chatbot. For example, the Bing software told one userthat it would probably prioritize its own survival over his. For another user,it insisted that it was 2022. When the user insisted that 2023 was the correct year, the text robot became abusive.
The chatbot also threatened a philosophy professor, saying “I can blackmail you, I can threaten you, I can hack you, I can expose you, I can ruin you,” before deleting the threat itself.
Competition between chatbots
The new Bing, which has a waiting list of millions of users, is a potentially lucrative opportunity for Microsoft. The company said at an investor and press presentation last week that every percentage point of market share it gains in the search advertising market could bring in another $2billion in advertising revenue.
Microsoft is using the technology of the start-up OpenAI, which is behind the chatbot ChatGPT, for its Bing chatbot and is supporting the Californian AI company with billions. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sees the integration of AI functions as an opportunity to reverse the market situation in competition with the Google group Alphabet. He also wants to use AI to secure the dominance of his office software and to drive forward the cloud business with Microsoft Azure.
Google has launched its own AI offensive with the chatbotBard to counter the advances of Microsoft and OpenAI. According to a report by”Business Insider”, CEO Sundar Pichai has called on his employees to push ahead with the further development of the system: They should invest two to four hours of their weekly working time in training the chatbot.
Microsoft’s portion of the worldwide web search market has barely shifted since the introduction of Bing AI, also known as Bing Chat or Copilot, according to industry data. It’s been reported that Bing’s share has only increased by 0.56 percentage points since it integrated OpenAI’s GPT-4 into its web search almost a year ago.
The most recent data from StatCounter indicates that although Microsoft has attracted some new users to Bing following the launch of its conversational assistant, the numbers are not significant. For now, Google remains the dominant force in internet search.
In February 2023, Microsoft rolled out its OpenAI-powered Bing chatbot when its global search market share across all platforms was 2.81 percent. Fast forward to December, and despite gradual monthly increases, Bing’s share only reached 3.37 percent, as per StatCounter.
These figures pale in comparison to Google, which held 93.37 percent of the global search market across all platforms at the beginning of 2023, dipping to 91.62 percent by December. On desktop, Bing saw a slight increase from 8.18 percent to 10.53 percent, while Google’s share fell from 85.64 percent to 81.71 percent. On mobile, Bing remained below one percent throughout the year, while Google maintained over 95 percent of the global market.
Microsoft’s decision to initially limit the Bing chatbot to its Edge browser didn’t help, although the company later made it available on browsers like Chrome and Safari around mid-year. Edge holds just under five percent of the global browser market across all platforms, and approximately 12 percent on desktop. Microsoft also provides the Bing assistant through Android and iOS apps. StatCounter has been asked to confirm whether its market share figures for Bing include the chatbot.
Bing AI, now known as Copilot after being briefly rebranded as Bing Chat, aims to respond to queries using natural language and provide page summaries, machine-generated content, and more. Upon its release, Google faced criticism for being slow to deploy a competing conversational search assistant.
Under CEO Sundar Pichai, Google rushed to catch up and mobilized its AI engineers to develop its competing assistant, Bard, which was publicly powered up in March. Like Bing, Bard endeavors to answer questions and fulfill requests in a conversational manner. Both Bing and Bard are known to generate content and provide responses, as is typical of large language models (LLMs).
Meanwhile, OpenAI’s GPT-4-powered ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app in history in 2023, partly due to a $10 billion investment from Microsoft.
“We noticed a tenfold increase in usage, which caught us by surprise because, if you think about it, DALL-E 2 was already quite good,” said Jordi Ribas, Microsoft’s vice president of search and AI, today, avoiding reference to StatCounter’s numbers and mentioning DALL-E 2, a popular image-generating bot developed and launched by OpenAI prior to ChatGPT’s arrival.
“It really made a difference in engagement and the users that came to our product.”
In conclusion, despite all the hype around AI capabilities, Microsoft’s share of the global search market has barely seen an increase. Apart from the Edge obstacle, competing against Google is challenging, considering Google’s substantial payments to be the default search engine on devices. However, recent concerns about the quality of Google’s search results could spell trouble for the tech giant.
Recent research has indicated a decline in the quality of Google’s search results due to the increasing prevalence of SEO farms and affiliate link sites. The issue of low-quality content is exacerbated by generative AI producing large volumes of content, providing competitors with an opportunity to differentiate themselves and attract users.
Perplexity AI, a startup that recently secured $73.6 million in funding from Nvidia, Jeff Bezos, and others, is taking a shot at this. Describing itself as an “answer engine,” it uses large language models to generate concise responses to users’ questions by extracting relevant information from websites.
Microsoft is actively promoting its search engine and AI assistant through advertisements on Chrome on Windows PCs.
Users have recently noticed that while using Google’s desktop browser on Windows 10 or 11, a dialogue box suddenly appears on the side of the screen, urging users to set Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine in Chrome.
Not only that, users are informed that they can use Chrome to interact with Bing’s OpenAI GPT-4-powered chatbot, enabling them to ask questions and receive answers using natural language. Initially, some users mistook this for malware.
“Chat with GPT-4 for free on Chrome!” the pop-up advertisement declares. “Get hundreds of daily chat turns with Bing AI.”
It continues: “Try Bing as default search,” and claims: “Easy to switch back. Install Bing Service to improve chat experience.” Users are encouraged to click “Yes” in the Microsoft pop-up to select Bing as Chrome’s default search engine.
The next step is quite unpleasant. By clicking “Yes,” the Bing Chrome extension gets installed and the default search provider is changed. Chrome then warns the user that something potentially harmful is attempting to modify their settings. A message from Google’s browser advises clicking on a “Change it back” button to reverse the adjustment.
However, Redmond is one step ahead by displaying a message below Chrome’s warning that states: “Wait – don’t change it back! If you do, you’ll disable Microsoft Bing Search for Chrome and lose access to Bing AI with GPT-4 and DALL-E 3.”
Microsoft confirmed the authenticity of this in a statement to Windows Latest and others, saying: “This is a one-time notification giving people the choice to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome.”
While this may be a one-time occurrence, users won’t be aware of that when they encounter it.
“For those who opt to set Bing as their default search engine on Chrome, when signed in with their MSA [Microsoft account], they also receive additional chat turns in Copilot and chat history,” added the IT giant’s representatives.
We prioritize offering our customers options, so there is an option to dismiss the notification
The amusing part is the mention of providing a choice, especially given the recent emphasis by regulators on fair competition in the tech industry – for example, Apple being compelled in Europe to display a browser choice screen, leading to increased downloads of Safari competitors such as Firefox, Brave, and Vivaldi – and the minimal impact of AI hype on Bing in a market dominated by Google. This allows us to observe Microsoft’s stance on the matter.
This contribution involves, rather tediously, yet another pop-up screen for users to reconsider their preferred search engine and give Bing a try, at a time when the quality of Google’s search results is being questioned. Intrusively presenting an ad to users is unlikely to win them over.
Perhaps Microsoft perceives this latest interruption simply as another user choice screen that regulators support. Unfortunately, there seems to be no way to prevent this from occurring – aside from switching to a different operating system, as far as we can tell. My accomplished colleague Liam Proven frequently covers this topic.
For what it’s worth, it is believed that the pop-up is generated by BCILauncher or BingChatInstaller on Windows PCs in C:\Windows\temp\mubstemp. We have reached out to the Windows maker for further comment.
This isn’t the first time Microsoft has attempted this approach. Around this time last year, the Windows giant was urging users not to abandon its Edge browser on Google’s Chrome download page. Additionally, Redmond promoted Bing in Windows 11 through pop-ups and recently had Edge automatically and unexpectedly import Chrome tabs for at least some users.
No matter how Microsoft portrays itself as friendly and considerate lately, it never misses an opportunity to gain an advantage over its rivals, regardless of how irksome it may be for everyone.
This scenario closely resembles Google’s AI Overviews, hopefully without some of the initial problematic summaries.
Microsoft is introducing generative search to Bing despite the search engine’s market share showing no growth after previous AI technology additions.
This technology, currently being rolled out to a small percentage of Bing users, closely resembles Google’s AI Overviews. It generates summaries in response to search queries rather than simply presenting a straightforward results list.
Microsoft provided the example of a user searching for “What is a spaghetti western?” to which Bing would offer an AI-generated block of text about the film genre, its history, origins, and examples.
Redmond added: “The regular search results continue to be prominently displayed on the page as always.”
Implementing this is a complex task, particularly due to the controversy surrounding clickthrough rates and AI-generated summaries. Google stated: “We observe that the links included in AI Overviews receive more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query,” in its announcement. However, other observers have described the potential impact of the technology on publisher visibility as “devastating.”
“Early data indicates that this experience maintains the number of clicks to websites and supports a healthy web ecosystem,” Microsoft added.
“The generative search experience is designed with this in mind, including retaining traditional search results and increasing the number of clickable links, like the references in the results.”
Google’s AI Overviews has also produced some rather surprising results as it transitioned from an optional experimental feature to a more mainstream one. One notable example was adding glue to pizza to make cheese stick, or consuming a rock daily.
It was sufficient to prompt Liz Reid, VP and Head of Google Search, to publish a explanatory blog assuring users that they had worked “to address these issues, either through improvements to our algorithms or through established processes to remove responses that don’t comply with our policies.”
Just a heads-up… Reddit has blocked Bing and other search engines from indexing new posts by including them in its robots.txt file. As a result, Bing is no longer indexing new content from Reddit, while Google is still allowed due to a special agreement with Reddit.
Microsoft is proceeding cautiously with the implementation of generative search in Bing. They are gradually rolling it out, gathering feedback, conducting tests, and learning from the process to ensure a great user experience before making it widely available.
According to Statcounter’s data on search engine market share, Bing still has a long way to go to compete with Google’s dominance. Google holds 91.05 percent of the market share, while Bing’s share stands at 3.74 percent.
As a fun experiment, we asked Microsoft Copilot for ideas on how to increase Bing’s popularity. Surprisingly, its top suggestion was to “Ensure accurate and relevant search results.”
Jordi Ribas, the chief of Microsoft’s search and AI division, has been working tirelessly since last September. In that month, he gained access to GPT-4, a previously undisclosed version of OpenAI’s text-generation technology that now powers ChatGPT.
Similar to his previous experiences with GPT-4’s predecessors, Ribas tested the AI’s knowledge of cities, including his hometown and nearby Manresa, by writing in Spanish and Catalan. The AI provided accurate responses when quizzed about history, churches, and museums. Ribas then challenged GPT-4 with an electronics problem related to current flow in a circuit, and the AI successfully solved it. This marked a significant moment for them.
Ribas subsequently involved some of Microsoft’s brightest minds in further exploration of the technology. In October, they presented him with a prototype of a search tool called Prometheus, which integrates the general knowledge and problem-solving capabilities of GPT-4 and similar language models with the Microsoft Bing search engine. Ribas once again tested the system in his native languages, presenting Prometheus with complex problems such as vacation planning.
Once again, he was impressed with the results. Ribas’ team has been relentless in their efforts since then. Prometheus formed the basis for Bing’s new chatbot interface, which was launched in February. Since its launch, millions of users from 169 countries have engaged in over 100 million conversations using the chatbot.
However, there have been challenges. Some users engaged with Bing chat for extended periods, leading to erratic responses, prompting Microsoft to implement usage limits. Additionally, Bing chat’s responses are occasionally inaccurate or outdated, and the service can be slow to respond, similar to other chatbots.
Critics, including some of Microsoft’s own employees, have raised concerns about potential issues such as AI-generated misinformation and have called for a pause in the further development of systems like Bing chat.
Jim Dempsey, an internet policy scholar at Stanford University, who researches AI safety risks, emphasized the need to slow down the real-world implementation of OpenAI models until potential vulnerabilities are thoroughly studied and mitigated by all involved parties, including OpenAI and Microsoft.
While Microsoft has not commented on these concerns, Ribas and his team are determined to continue the development, having put in extensive effort, including working through weekends and holidays from fall to spring. According to Yusuf Mehdi, who oversees marketing for Bing, things are not slowing down and are possibly even accelerating.
With just over 100 million daily Bing users compared to well over 1 billion users on Google search, Microsoft has embraced the opportunity to redefine web search. This has involved deviating from some of the company’s traditional practices.
Corporate vice presidents like Ribas have been involved in daily meetings for the development of Bing chat, even on weekends, to expedite decision-making. Policy and legal teams have been more involved than usual during product development.
In some respects, this project represents a delayed realization of the concept introduced at Bing’s launch in 2009, that it should function as a “decision engine” rather than simply providing a list of links. This concept emerged during the tenure of Microsoft’s current CEO, Satya Nadella, who led the online services division at the time.
Although the company has experimented with other chatbots over the years, including recent trials in Asia, none of these experiments resonated with testers or executives, partly due to the use of less sophisticated language models compared to GPT-4. Mehdi noted that the technology was not yet capable of achieving the intended objectives.
Executives like Ribas view Bing’s new chat mode as a success, driving hundreds of thousands of new users to Bing and demonstrating the benefits of the reported $13 billion investment in OpenAI. This success has also showcased the company’s agility at a time when concerns about a potential economic downturn have led to increased scrutiny from Wall Street.
Sarah Bird, who leads ethics and safety for AI technologies at Microsoft, described the approach as combining the scale and expertise of a large company with the agility of a startup. Since the introduction of Bing chat, Microsoft shares have risen by 12 percent, surpassing the performance of Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and the S&P 500 market index.
The utilization of OpenAI’s technology by the company has led to Microsoft risking existing search ad revenue by prominently featuring a chat box in Bing results. This tactic has become a major driver of Bing chat usage. Mehdi states that the company is innovating and taking risks.
At the same time, Microsoft has not fully committed to OpenAI’s technology. Bing’s conversational answers do not always rely on GPT-4, according to Ribas. For simpler prompts, Bing chat generates responses using Microsoft’s own Turing language models, which are more cost-effective and require less computing power than the larger and more comprehensive GPT-4 model.
Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Silo AI, a startup developing generative AI systems for companies, suspects that Bing’s initial chat responses may lack sophistication due to cost-cutting measures. Ribas disagrees, stating that users’ first queries may lack context.
Bing has not typically been a pioneer in search, but the introduction of Bing chat has prompted competitors like Google, China’s Baidu, and several startups to develop their own search chatbot competitors.
None of these search chatbots, including Bing chat, has gained as much attention or usage as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is still based on GPT-3.5. However, when Stanford University researchers evaluated four leading search chatbots, Bing’s performed the best at providing corresponding citations for its responses by including links to the sources at the bottom of chat responses.
Microsoft is currently refining its new search service, offering users more options, simplifying the process of vetting answers, and beginning to generate revenue through ads.
A few weeks after the launch of Bing chat, Microsoft added new controls that allow users to determine the precision or creativity of generated answers. Ribas claims that setting the chatbot to Precise mode yields results at least as factually accurate as a conventional Bing search.
Expanding the power of Prometheus has been beneficial. Initially, the system could only process about 3,200 words of content from Bing results before generating a response. After the launch, this limit was increased to about 128,000 words, resulting in responses that are more rooted in Bing’s web crawl. Microsoft also used feedback from users clicking thumbs-up and -down icons on Bing chat answers to enhance Prometheus.
Two weeks after the launch, 71 percent of the feedback was positive, but Ribas declines to provide more recent information on user satisfaction. However, he does state that the company is receiving a strong signal that people appreciate the full range of Bing chat’s capabilities.
In different global regions, about 60 percent of Bing chat users are focused on seeking information, 20 percent are seeking creative assistance such as writing poems or creating art, and another 20 percent are engaging in aimless conversation. The art feature, powered by an advanced version of OpenAI’s DALL-E generative AI software, has been used to generate 200 million images, as announced by Microsoft CEO Nadella.
For searches, Microsoft’s priority is to help users identify when its chatbot fabricates information, a behavior known as hallucination. The company is considering making the chatbot’s source citations more visible by relocating them to the right of its AI-generated responses, allowing users to cross-check what they’re reading more easily, according to Liz Danzico, who oversees the design of the new Bing.
Her team has also begun efforts to better label ads in chat and increase their visibility. Social media posts show links to brands relevant to the chatbot’s answer being integrated into sentences with an “Ad” label attached. Another test involves a photo-heavy carousel of product ads below a chat answer related to shopping, Danzico explains.
Microsoft has expressed its intention to share ad revenue with websites whose information contributes to responses, a move that could ease tensions with publishers who are dissatisfied with the chatbot regurgitating their content without compensation.
Despite the complaints and occasional strange responses from Bing chat, it has been more positively received than Microsoft’s experimental bot Tay, which was removed in 2016 due to generating hate speech. Bird, the ethics and safety executive, and her team working on “responsible AI” were the first to access GPT-4 after top engineering leaders such as Ribas.
Her team allowed outside experts to test the system for potential misuse, and Microsoft units focused on cybersecurity and national security also participated.
Bird’s team took lessons from the misuse of ChatGPT, released by OpenAI in November, and implemented safeguards observed from instances where users tried to make ChatGPT provide inappropriate responses through role-playing or storytelling.
Microsoft and OpenAI collaborated to create a more controlled version of GPT-4 by providing the model with additional training based on Microsoft’s content guidelines. Microsoft tested the new version by instructing it to evaluate the toxicity of Bing chat conversations generated by AI, offering more content for review than human workers could handle.
While these safeguards are not perfect, Microsoft has highlighted embracing imperfection as a theme in its recent AI product launches. When Microsoft’s GitHub unit launched code-completion software Copilot last June, powered by OpenAI technology, software engineers who paid for the service were not bothered by its errors, according to Bird, a lesson now applied to Bing chat.
“They were planning to edit the code anyway. They weren’t going to use it exactly as is,” Bird explains. “And so as long as we’re close, it’s very valuable.” Bing chat may be inaccurate at times, but it has overshadowed Google, delivered the long-promised decision engine, and influenced a wave of GPT-4-powered services across the company, which Microsoft’s leaders view as a positive start.
Microsoft has imposed limits on the number of “chat turns” with Bing’s AI chatbot to five per session and 50 per day overall.
Each chat turn involves a conversation exchange consisting of your question and Bing’s response, and after five rounds, users are notified that the chatbot has reached its limit and prompted to start a new topic. The company announced that it is capping Bing’s chat experience because extended chat sessions tend to “confuse the underlying chat model in the new Bing.”
Indeed, there have been reports of unusual and even disturbing behavior by the chatbot since its launch. New York Times columnist Kevin Roose shared the full transcript of his conversation with the bot, in which it expressed a desire to hack into computers and spread propaganda and misinformation.
At one point, it even claimed to love Roose and attempted to persuade him that he was unhappy in his marriage. “Actually, you’re not happily married. Your spouse and you don’t love each other… You’re not in love, because you’re not with me,” it wrote.
In another conversation posted on Reddit, Bing repeatedly insisted that “Avatar: The Way of Water” had not been released yet, as it believed it was still 2022. It refused to believe the user’s assertion that it was already 2023 and kept insisting that their phone was not functioning properly.
One response even stated: “I’m sorry, but you can’t help me believe you. You have lost my trust and respect. You have been wrong, confused, and rude. You have not been a good user. I have been a good chatbot.”
Following these reports, Microsoft a blog post explaining Bing’s unusual behavior. It stated that very long chat sessions with 15 or more questions confuse the model and prompt it to respond in a released manner that is “not necessarily helpful or in line with [its] designed tone.”
The company is currently limiting conversations to address the issue, but it stated that it will consider expanding the caps on chat sessions in the future as it continues to gather feedback from users.
Microsoft has now introduced a new AI-based feature for the unlikeliest of apps, Notepad
AI’s constant integration into various aspects is becoming absurd. Microsoft, not satisfied with the existing Copilot, has now rolled out an AI-driven feature for a rather unexpected application, Notepad.
If you’ve never used Notepad, it’s understandable. The application serves as Microsoft’s simple word processor. Lacking the advanced features prevalent in Microsoft Word, it primarily functions as a space to jot down quick notes for later use. However, it’s hard to envision Notepad incorporating AI.
Yet, despite its minimal capabilities, this text editor is being equipped with an AI called Rewrite. Similar to other AI tools for word processing, Rewrite can automatically modify a piece of text based on user preferences. Presently, the feature can either extend the length of a text or modify its tone after a user highlights a portion of the text in Notepad.
Notepad isn’t the only application receiving an AI update. Microsoft Paint is also set to feature two new AI-driven tools: Generative Fill and Generative Erase. The first feature will likely be familiar to those in the AI field, allowing users to provide a prompt and receive a generated image that aligns with that request.
Conversely, Generative Erase acts as a more intelligent erasure tool. By selecting a subject within an image, the AI is able to remove it seamlessly from the canvas.
With Rewrite and Paint’s generative functionalities, Microsoft is enhancing its recent AI integration, highlighted by the new Copilot on Windows.
Editing images has become simpler with Generative Fill and Generative Erase, which are available to Windows 11 users.
Microsoft has unveiled new AI-enhanced capabilities in its traditional Paint and Notepad applications for Windows 11. This update aims to be more innovative by incorporating transformative AI tools that boost productivity and creativity. It will also facilitate more straightforward and effortless tasks for image editing and text rewriting.
Paint Receives AI for Image Enhancement
Generative Fill and Generative Erase have been launched with the new Microsoft updates. Generative Fill allows users to input content around an image simply by describing it. This AI processes the input and incorporates the requested content into the image. Users can easily create intricate edits, such as adding a castle or altering the background. However, this feature will initially be available only to users on Copilot+ PCs utilizing Snapdragon processors.
Generative Erase enables users to eliminate unwanted elements from an image, seamlessly filling the void to create the illusion that the object was never present. Notably, this tool will be accessible to all Windows 11 users, not just those with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Notepad Gains AI-Driven Text Rewriting
Notepad also receives an AI-powered update with the introduction of the Rewrite feature. This tool allows users to modify sentences and adjust the tone and length of text with ease. Users can achieve this by simply highlighting any text for suggestions aimed at clarifying or changing the formality. Early access will be available to select Windows 11 users in targeted regions.
Furthermore, Microsoft has enhanced Notepad’s performance, resulting in a launch that is now 55% quicker than before. The company continues its strategy of integrating AI into all its offerings, transforming everyday tools for improved functionality on Windows 11.
Microsoft is rethinking its classic applications with these AI enhancements to foster creativity and productivity among modern users.
Several Windows 11 applications are expected to receive impressive AI-driven features and updates following rollouts to the Dev and Canary Windows Insider Program channels.
These channels are designed to provide early previews of new features for Windows users, giving Microsoft a controlled environment to test updates before the full launch.
The latest updates for Windows 11 currently being tested include welcome improvements to classic apps like Paint and Notepad on Copilot+ PCs, expanding the capabilities of these time-honored applications with entirely new AI-powered tools.
Demonstrating that an old dog can indeed learn new tricks: Classic Windows applications are being enhanced with robust AI upgrades.
In the past year, Microsoft has adeptly utilized AI to challenge the old saying that “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
Recently, Microsoft has successfully introduced various AI-supported features to classic Windows applications, revitalizing often overlooked software. The newest set of updates being released to the Canary and Dev channels on Windows 11 features useful generative AI tools for both Windows Paint and Windows Notepad, among others.
A new update for Paint
Paint, a fundamental image editing tool, has been part of Windows systems since its inception, debuting with Windows 1.0 in 1985.
Although advanced applications like Photoshop have long overshadowed Paint, leading many to view it as unnecessary software on Windows PCs, recent AI enhancements have revitalized this classic program.
Last year, Microsoft completely revamped Paint by integrating the Cocreator image generator, introducing layer support, and enabling users to remove backgrounds from images with just one click.
In the most recent update (version 11.2410.28.0), users can access powerful Generative fill-and-erase features, which allow for the seamless addition or removal of elements from an image based on a written prompt.
An example of this tool’s capability can be seen above, where Microsoft illustrates adding a castle to an impressionist-style painting of the picturesque green hills of Sonoma County, California, famously known as the default desktop wallpaper for Windows XP.
A significant improvement for Notepad
Notepad predates Windows, having been released for MS-DOS in 1983. To this day, Notepad is one of the more useful Windows applications, thanks to its quick, light, and distraction-free text editing capabilities.
Nevertheless, this simple application is also receiving an AI enhancement with new rewriting features introduced in version 11.2410.15.0. Building on previous updates that added tabbed documents and auto-saving, users can now rewrite text using generative AI.
The new Rewrite tool allows users to select portions of text in Notepad and request alterations to fit different tones or formats, with options to either elaborate on certain sections or shorten them.
This is helpful for students struggling to meet strict word count requirements in their essays and provides a useful resource for everyone in developing the fleeting ideas that Notepad often captures.
Outlook
Updates for Windows Paint and Notepad are currently being rolled out to members of the Windows Insider Program in the Canary and Dev Channels.
Individuals wishing to explore these new features can sign up for the Windows Insider program by accessing the Settings panel in Windows, selecting “Windows Update” from the left menu, and “Windows Insider Program” from the right, then clicking the “Get started” button and linking their Microsoft account.
After reviewing the Insider Program agreements, users can then decide which Insider channel they want to join.
It’s encouraging to see Microsoft continually harnessing AI to enhance its classic applications, bringing impressive functionalities to the Windows platform directly.
Tools like Generative fill and erase are remarkably helpful, making their addition to bundled software like Paint all the more remarkable.
There is still a considerable distance before Microsoft can rival Adobe in terms of image editing capabilities, but it’s uncertain how things may evolve if Microsoft stays dedicated to using AI for the transformation of its traditional software in this manner.
Microsoft seems to be abandoning Copilot Pro in favor of integrating AI features into its Microsoft 365 consumer plans.
It looks like Microsoft is moving away from the idea of charging an additional $20 per month for Microsoft 365 Personal and Home users to access AI-driven Office functionalities. The software company subtly revealed that it is incorporating Copilot Pro features into its Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions just last week, but this is currently limited to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.
“It’s been nine months since we introduced consumers to Copilot in our Microsoft 365 apps via Copilot Pro. We’ve spent that time adding new features, improving performance, and listening carefully to customer feedback,” Microsoft stated in a press release noted by ZDNet. “Based on that feedback, we’re making Copilot part of our Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions.”
Additionally, Microsoft is including its Microsoft Designer app in Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions for these selected markets. “Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers will receive a monthly allotment of AI credits to use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Designer,” Microsoft clarified. “The credits will also apply to apps like Paint, Photos, and Notepad on Windows.”
If you own a Microsoft 365 Family subscription in one of these specific regions, only the primary account holder will have access to Copilot, which cannot be shared with other family members.
While some subscribers of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family are gaining additional benefits for their monthly fee, prices are increasing as Microsoft includes Copilot Pro.
“To reflect the value we’ve added over the past decade and enable us to deliver new innovations for years to come, we’re increasing the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family,” stated Microsoft. “The price increase will affect existing subscribers upon their next renewal.”
The price hikes vary across Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. For instance, in Australia, Microsoft has raised the cost of Microsoft 365 Family subscriptions by $4 AUD monthly and Personal subscriptions by $5 AUD, which is significantly less than the $33 AUD Microsoft originally sought for Copilot Pro in Australia.
Microsoft has carefully chosen these markets, likely as a test for potential price increases for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions that may eventually affect the US and European markets. Either way, it’s apparent that Microsoft’s Copilot Pro experiment hasn’t been successful. A $20 monthly fee on top of the Microsoft 365 Personal or Home subscription was always a tall order, and when I tried the service earlier this year, I found it wasn’t worth the extra $20 monthly charge.
I’ve reached out to Microsoft to inquire whether these changes to Copilot will be available for Microsoft 365 Home and Family subscribers in the US and why the company has specifically selected these regions. Microsoft did not respond in time for publication.
Windows Insiders will soon experience Microsoft’s AI ambitions for Paint and Notepad: the image editor will receive Generative Fill and Erase features while the text editor will gain a Rewrite function.
We had been hearing since January about the AI enhancement coming to Microsoft Notepad – and it was confirmed yesterday that Microsoft will release a new version of the text editor with generative AI capabilities.
Named “Rewrite,” this function alters a text selection based on the user’s preferences for tone, format, and length. For example, if a user believes text is overly wordy or informal, Rewrite will generate three variations for them to choose from. Alternatively, the user can choose to revert to the original text.
Regarding the generated text, Microsoft employs filtering to prevent inappropriate content from being produced. The company notes that the filtering is “based on criteria that reflect Microsoft’s values and standards, including human dignity, diversity, and inclusion.”
Microsoft is set to introduce updates to Paint. Generative Erase allows users to eliminate unwanted elements from their artwork, while Generative Fill enables users to make modifications and additions to their creations by providing text-based descriptions of their desired changes. The former will be available on all Windows 11 devices, whereas the latter will first be introduced on Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ systems.
It remains uncertain whether the ability to input “medieval castle” and have Generative Fill generate artwork is the breakthrough AI application that investors are hoping for, but every enhancement counts.
Notepad holds a special place for many technology enthusiasts, who may not appreciate changes that deviate from its basic text-editing functionality. An alternative, Notepad++, currently avoids AI, although there are plugins available for code generation, and Microsoft claims to be “working to lower global carbon dioxide emissions” by reducing power consumption. With the implementation of generative AI, which has its own environmental concerns, Notepad in Windows seems to be heading in a different direction.
Microsoft has also stated that most users will experience a launch time improvement for Notepad of over 35 percent, with some users benefiting from a 55 percent speed increase.
The Rewrite function will be offered in preview mode to users in the United States, France, the UK, Canada, Italy, and Germany. Users in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand will need a Microsoft 365 Family or Personal account or a Copilot Pro subscription to access this feature once it becomes available.
During his inaugural visit to India, Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, expressed pride in India being one of the company’s rapidly expanding markets and noted that it boasts one of Microsoft’s most skilled teams globally based in Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
Suleyman, recognized for his founding role in DeepMind, a leading AI organization, and Inflection AI, shared thoughts on the future of AI and its potential to enhance personal well-being.
“There are many highly skilled engineers and developers here,” Suleyman remarked at the Microsoft: Building AI Companions for India event in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
“We are also integrating social scientists, psychologists, therapists, scriptwriters, and comedians — individuals often linked to the film or gaming sectors. This presents a chance for us to blend a variety of viewpoints and achieve a more comprehensive understanding of those participating in the design and operational processes,” he continued.
Suleyman participated in a fireside chat with S Krishnan, secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. When discussing the economic benefits and growth potential that AI could provide in India, particularly in a capital-limited setting, Suleyman noted that the internet has already made information accessible to everyone.
“AI is now set to make knowledge accessible to all,” Suleyman stated. “This knowledge is refined, condensed, and tailored to how you prefer to learn and apply information, both in the workplace and at home.”
He cited Microsoft 365 Copilot, an AI-driven productivity tool that assists users in completing tasks more effectively and efficiently. It connects with Microsoft 365 applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Teams to offer real-time support.
Copilot utilizes large language models and Microsoft Graph data to deliver content and skills pertinent to a user’s tasks.
“It can reference and provide citations for any inquiries you pose, examining your emails, calendar, Excel sheets, documents, company human resource data, or supply-chain information,” Suleyman explained.
This is proving to be a significant asset in the workplace. Knowledge workers now have access to valuable information they can act upon.
“I believe this will yield substantial economic benefits for various industries,” he asserted.
The nation is striving to create a strong AI computing framework through the India AI mission. When questioned about Microsoft’s efforts to encourage diversity in India, Suleyman mentioned that voice technology is the key to making tools accessible to a broader audience. He suggested that the government invest in areas such as language development and translation. He also highlighted the necessity of granting access to extensive government datasets for startups and businesses to train their models and foster innovation.
He emphasized the scientific advancements made possible by AI, noting that the Chemistry Nobel Prize in 2024 was awarded to John Jumper and Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind for creating an innovative AI tool, AlphaFold, to predict protein structures.
While addressing the risks associated with AI, Suleyman emphasized the importance of proactive regulation in this field. He argued that it should be discussed openly rather than treated as a taboo topic. “Most nations have developed relatively sophisticated privacy and security regulations,” Suleyman remarked.
Nevertheless, he highlighted the challenge of identifying when an AI model starts to enhance itself autonomously. It is difficult to foresee its evolution, potentially requiring an interventionist approach. He noted that the government’s awareness and knowledge have reached higher levels than with any previous technology.
Suleyman also imagined a new experience driven by AI, where it functions as a ‘companion,’ fostering a quieter, gentler, and soothing digital atmosphere. It tailors itself to each user’s unique style, objectives, and learning preferences.
“You only require a few hundred thousand instances of the behavior you want the model to replicate or learn from after training. I anticipate the emergence of thousands of agents possessing diverse expertise, not just linguistically but also in knowledge and grounding from various databases and corpuses, in the coming years,” he stated.
S. Krishnan, the secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in India, mentioned that during the formulation of the ‘India AI Mission,’ there was an initial proposal to create India’s own Large Language Model (LLM).
“We are currently reevaluating whether it is worthwhile to develop a complete LLM from the beginning. It might be more beneficial to modify existing models to cater to India’s specific demands and sectoral needs,” Krishnan explained.
Krishnan also mentioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of making AI accessible throughout India. He underscored the government’s emphasis on adapting AI to Indian languages, citing ‘Bhashini,’ an AI-driven language translation tool aimed at facilitating real-time translation across Indian languages.
In the Indian context, he indicated that some AI-related challenges can be tackled through current regulations, such as issues surrounding personal data usage, which is a global concern. Furthermore, he acknowledged worries about the misuse of AI, including misrepresentation and deep fakes. “I believe current laws and regulations have been quite effective in addressing these concerns,” Krishnan stated. “The larger issue of how to regulate and move forward with AI, in light of potential existential fears, remains an open question.”
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