Today, you can ask Microsoft Copilot to create an AI-generated image of a strawberry pie for free right from within Windows. But if you want to do the same thing in Microsoft Word, it will cost you at least $26 per month. Does that make sense?
AI art has been part of Microsoft’s ecosystem since 2022, with the introduction of Microsoft Bing Image Creator. This evolved into Microsoft Designer, a tool developed to compete with Canva. Recently, Microsoft announced that Designer’s AI art capabilities would be rolled out across several of its apps and services, including Photos, Word, and PowerPoint.
However, there’s a catch: These capabilities aren’t free. Microsoft 365 requires a subscription: Personal users pay $6.99 per month or $69.99 annually, while Family users pay $9.99 per month or $99.99 annually. This subscription unlocks access to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and more. To generate AI art within Word, Microsoft charges an additional $20 per user per month for the Copilot Pro subscription.
This setup leads to some confusion. Essentially, Microsoft allows you to create AI-generated illustrations for your Word documents directly within Word, and similar images can be added as backgrounds, themes, or embedded images within PowerPoint. But there are still limitations: features like adding an AI-generated banner to a document are not yet available. (Isn’t a banner just an elongated illustration?)
Interestingly, you don’t need a specialized Copilot subscription to generate AI art. You can use the Win+C shortcut on your PC to open Copilot and have it generate an AI image, which you can then download and import into Word. Additionally, other AI art generators are available, such as Adobe Photoshop plus Lightroom, which includes generative AI art capabilities via Firefly for $19.99 per month.
Copilot Pro offers more than just AI art capabilities; it also provides access to premier large language models (LLMs). However, Microsoft must continually add features and capabilities to justify the cost of any new subscription, including Microsoft 365. Meanwhile, smart users will find ways to perform these tasks without paying extra.
In conclusion, Microsoft wants you to pay over $300 per year (Microsoft 365 Personal + Copilot Pro) to add a few AI-generated images to your neighborhood newsletter. Is that something you’re willing to do? Probably not.