Microsoft bakes DALL-E 2 into new app for Insta-worthy AI designs

Microsoft is jumping on the AI art bandwagon.

At its 2022 Surface event on Wednesday, Microsoft announced the latest addition to its 365 suite of creative tools: Microsoft Designer. This is a new app that, as the name suggests, is meant for graphic design, specifically creating attractive-looking images for social media or digital postcards quickly.

That’s all well and good, but the big news here is that it’s fueled by AI, including the internet’s current favorite meme-creation engine, DALL-E 2.

Microsoft didn’t elaborate much on how exactly Designer works or when it will be available to the public, but we do know that you can feed it an idea for an image through text and it will spit something unique back at you. That’s similar to the text-prompt-powered DALL-E engine, which everyone on my Twitter feed uses to create images of Joe Biden dunking basketballs or whatever.

I don't want leaves on my cake. Credit: Microsoft

According to Microsoft, there’s also a “design deck” feature that will integrate the content you’ve been generating into a design that’s shareable to social media directly from the Designer app. I anticipate seeing birthday party or wedding invites that have that signature kind-of-creepy look that everything made with DALL-E has.

Microsoft Designer sounds like a boon for those who aren’t creative enough to make graphic designs themselves. Of course, please remember that you can always just commission a real artist to make something cool. Artists need to eat, too.