UPDATED 13:55 EST / MARCH 21 2023

AI

Microsoft and Adobe introduce AI image generator tools as competition heats up

Artificial intelligence art generators have become ever more popular with the introduction of OpenAI LP’s DALL-E and Midjourney, which take text prompts and turn them into beautiful, often surreal artwork — and today, two major companies joined the party. 

Microsoft Corp. announced today that it’s bringing the power of AI image generation, powered by the DALL-E model, to its Bing search engine and Edge browser with the Bing Image Creator. Creative software developer Adobe Inc. also revealed today that it will enhance its own tools with an AI art generation product named Firefly.

For users with access to the Bing chat preview, the new AI image generator will already be at their fingertips and accessible in the “creative” mode. Users will be able to get the interface to generate artwork for them by simply typing a description of the image that they want created, providing a flourishing example such as a place, thing, or activity and then the underlying AI will produce something based on what it was told.

Users can quickly and easily type out whatever their imagination can come up with including “create an image” or “draw an image” and the AI will take it from there. Including iterating on a previous image from changing internal portions, changing elements of the image and allowing the user to modify the background or other parts. The same function is available to Edge users with access who can click on the Bing Image Creator icon in the sidebar or invoke Bing chat in the browser.

Microsoft stressed that the AI image generator had embedded safeguards that protect against the creation of unsafe or harmful images and it would block and warn users if they attempted to use prompts that would generate them. Images created by the AI also place a watermark icon in the bottom left corner so that if it is used, it indicates that it was generated by the Bing Image Creator — although that could probably be cropped out.

With these updates and more coming, our goal is to deliver more immersive experiences in Bing and Edge that make finding answers and exploring the web more interesting, useful and fun,” said Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president and consumer chief marketing officer at Microsoft.

This capability is being rolled out right now to the users who have access to the new Bing and Edge AI features in preview and will be available for users in English. Users who don’t have access to the new Bing and Edge features can sign up for the waitlist and those who don’t can test it right now.

Adobe unveils generative AI tools with Firefly

Adobe calls Firefly “a family of generative AI models for creative expression” that it is adding to its applications to allow users to harness the power of AI art generation that will start with two tools: one that allows users to generate images and another that produces text effects.

The new AI art generation tools will be integrated directly into Adobe’s already existing suite of creative cloud tools including Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express, which will allow users to tap into these capabilities.

The first current feature in the beta is a lot like DALL-E or Midjourney, which allows users to type in a text prompt and generates a series of images based on a text description called “text-to-image.” The second is similar to WordArt, called “text effects,” which allows users to type text onto the screen and then have a prompt adjust how it looks such as “covered in snow” or “looks like its made out of cake.” It will apply the style in the prompt to the text typed on the screen.

Adobe also has numerous other future features planned allowing users to take what they’ve already created in Adobe’s products and use text descriptions of what they desire to modify or add. That’s the power behind generative AI, which will extend the ability of Adobe’s already powerful AI tools built on Adobe Sensei.

For example, users of the Photoshop and Illustrator graphical editors will be able to take images that they are already working on and select sections of their digital art, then have the AI modify part of the image using context-aware prompts. It would be possible to take a photo of a house on a beach, select the house, type in “house made of seashells,” and have the AI provide variations of the house made of seashells. Or select the ocean and ask the AI to add boats, or select the sky and add an alien battle.

It can also be used to create new images based on the same color schemes and styles of existing content in order to make it easy to produce similar images. The same technology can also be applied to video editing, since the AI is capable of changing the mood or even the weather. 

“Generative AI is the next evolution of AI-driven creativity and productivity, transforming the conversation between creator and computer into something more natural, intuitive and powerful,” said David Wadhwani, president of digital media business at Adobe. “With Firefly, Adobe will bring generative AI-powered ‘creative ingredients’ directly into customers’ workflows.”

In order to mollify the fears of creators who are concerned that Adobe may be using their copyrighted works to train the AI, the company said that the first model is based on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed content and images for which copyright has expired. The objective is to make certain that any images generated will be safe for commercial use.

Adobe also said it’s developing a model to compensate creators who have their artwork used to train generative AI models, such as those used in Firefly, similar to that which it uses for Adobe Stock. It is also pioneering a global standard where creators can attach a “Do Not Train” metadata tag to their artwork to tell AI to not use their artwork.

The first two Firefly tools are available in a public beta starting today.

Images: Adobe, Microsoft

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