From Microsoft:
Creativity is more important to individuals than ever before. This reflects a trend that has added more than 165 million creators to the global creator economy in just the last three years.1 As a result, people demand tools that help them to be both productive and creative. Microsoft 365 strives to empower individuals to achieve great things by constantly evolving our products to meet their changing needs. We continue to demonstrate this commitment with new tools that help unleash creativity and imagination by enabling any type of digital ideation and creation—no professional skills required. Today, we’re excited to announce we’re removing the waitlist and adding an expanded set of features to the Microsoft Designer preview. With new AI technology at the core, Microsoft Designer simplifies the creative journey by helping you get started quickly, augment creative workflows, and overcome creative roadblocks.
From ideation to creation, Microsoft Designer is built to assist you at each stage of the creative process. As we originally announced in October 2022, Microsoft Designer can help quickly create stunning visuals, social media posts, invitations, and more using cutting-edge generative AI technology. Since October, the AI models have steadily improved, and we’ve worked to weave these powerful capabilities throughout the Designer canvas in even more delightful ways while keeping you in control. Moreover, for those moments of inspiration that strike while browsing the web, Designer is one click away within the Microsoft Edge sidebar. The seamless integration of Designer in Edge marks the first step in this journey. We’re excited for future integrations to come.
Spark new ideas and unleash creativity in less time with Microsoft Designer
Designer leverages cutting-edge generative AI technology to assist and empower every person to get started on new ideas, create unique and high-quality graphics in less time, and uplevel content, with or without a background in design.
. . . .
Get started with your ideas in Designer by simply describing what you want. Powered by generative AI technology, get one-of-a-kind images, including accompanying text and visuals, and design suggestions to meet your needs.
Link to the rest at Microsoft and thanks to F. for the tip.
PG generated a video Instagram post for Mrs. PG’s latest book below. PG didn’t try to persuade MS Designer to create its version of the F.O., however, and he didn’t find out how to insert a link to her Amazon book page or make the video run automatically.
After the first video, a series of other spinoffs based on the first one appeared. PG copied and pasted one below.
And another variation.
And another:
And one last Instagram Post:
The more corporate content I read, the more I realize why the people who make it are so worried about ChatGPT. It’s so soulless and bland (not without reason) that it can easily be made by an LLM and then just edited.
(And it’s entirely possible that the OP was made by an LLM.)
Exactly. I have been saying all along that LLMs are no threat to creative writers. The technique is to a huge pile of text, throwing it in a hopper, and extrude what you want from it. Most writing is, by definition, mediocre, so this technique can only produce mediocroe out put. But there are an awful lot of uncreative writers. They have good cause to be worried.
FWIW:
Microsoft wasn’t kidding about using GPT tech in all their existing products but DESIGNER is new. Still in open preview and like all free “AI” tools it is harvesting user prompts and behavior to “teach” the model.
Bing Create is available inside DESIGNER to create a focus image but it lets you import external photos or images. So if you have a cover image you can add it as a starting point, along with the prompt for DESIGNER itself. It is, for now, a unique tool aimed at business users, Microsoft’s bread-and-butter.
The final product is intended to be another member of the Office suite of applications, hence the repeated mentions of MICROSOFT 365, the new name of their Office subscription service which comes in both a corporate and a consumer version. They are also looking to add an online subscription for WINDOWS 11 for individuals to access virtual PCs online from any device (say, MACs or Linux). They already have a corporate focus service and are thinking of a friends-and-family consumer variant.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/microsoft-want-to-bring-windows-11-to-the-cloud-for-all-users-including-you
They already have a gaming subscription, GAME PASS, so they have a total of three different subscription services running atop their AZURE cloud computing platform, which is itself a corporate subscription service aimed at specific vertical markets like, say, hospitals and medical offices.
They are slowly reinventing themselves as a computing services company and are running full speed adding “AI” to their product lines. Promised but not yet specified is “Ai” for WORD and (probably) PUBLISHER. Something to keep an eye on, they may come out with useful developments.
(Ditto for ADOBE. They are adding similar features to their existing tools.)
Think of it as self-defense.
But, but… Call me “old school”, but I cannot run always-connected. Not only do I dislike a subscription service for fundamental platform software on price/control grounds, I literally can’t use such a product if it requires always-connected access. Can. Not. Do. It.
Why are all of these vulnerabilities being forced? I understand that certain sorts of access might have to depend upon the greater power/capacity, but if that cripples the entire product (vs just special features) from running locally, then what use is it to me? Reality is not always… reliable, not where I live, anyway.
They still sell standalone OFFICE, WINDOWS, and games.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=microsoft+office&rh=n%3A229534%2Cp_89%3AMicrosoft&dc&ds=v1%3AL6bD%2B20jRARAr5Y5UjifX85%2BRT0BWuwUgs9P0dQJeic&crid=10YCQSFXHWW67&qid=1687975537&rnid=2528832011&sprefix=micros%2Caps%2C460&ref=sr_nr_p_89_1
They’re not forcing anything on anybody.
It’s just an added choice for consumers.
(Something being litigated in federal court even as we speak, as the FTC ideologue in chief tries to block MS buying Activision based on the idea that paying $68.7B for a company and then removing its cash cow product from its biggest market is a reasonable business strategy.)
For games its a no-brainer, especially for “game of the month” type players who pay $70 for a new game every month and never replay. Most sell it to Gamespot for a few bucks. Instead, $10 a month gives them hundreds of games to *download* and play indefinitely. Essentially anybody who buys at least two games a year comes out ahead. If all you do is pay the one game, it makes no sense.
Its no different than KU but it *is* different from netflix because Netlix doesn’t sell their content on the side and MS does. At a 10% discount to subscribers. And you don’t have to be online to play the game. That’s why the downloads. They know datacaps are a pain.
For Office, thevMicrosoft 365 family plan of $130 a year ($100 first year via Amazon) provides access to all MS office app for 5 separate users on Windows, Mac, and Android, any or all, each. Plus 1TB of cloud storage for each account. There are other pans for small and big business.
Not for everybody.
But in general, the MS strategy is to deliver more value in return for the stickiness and predictability of the subscription. They just want to make money however and wherever they can make it.
BTW, MS has also been targeting the industrial and industrial IoT spaces for Azure; I wouldn’t be surprised if Azure’s market share in those areas was higher than AWS.
Cloud services have their place, but have big issues with security, trust, privacy, and internet availability (I’m in supposedly high tech Silicon Valley, and at home the only high speed option is Comcast, cell phone reception is marginal and mostly 4G). I’m not going to be giving up my local PC, and I do appreciate that, while MS tries to hide it, they still offer permanent licenses.
It is.
AWS is expanding their services, but their core business is still CPU CYCLES and storage.
AZURE started out with the full stack.
A quiet secret of OpenAI is that any apps or models built on their tech runs exclusively on AZURE. That $10B investment is going to pay out in many multiples. One estimate said $600B over 10 years.
Sneaky guy, that Nadella. 😉