Microsoft’s Designer AI image generator comes to iOS, Android with new features

Microsoft’s AI image generator Designer is finally coming out of preview. Today, the company announced that the service, powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 image generation model, is now available as free app on Android, iOS and Windows devices.

The move to launch the mobile app will allow anyone with a personal Microsoft account to create a variety of styles of images and designs on the go.

Microsoft also announced new capabilities for Designer, including the ability to restyle existing images the user uploads, and a set of prompts to help users get started on the blank canvas.

The company hopes the new capabilities and expanded access will boost the usage of the tool, propelling it ahead of competing AI image generators from Midjourney, Adobe, Ideogram and others.

Of course, many are also looking toward the release of Apple’s new mobile operating system iOS 18 in the fall, in which users (at least those in the U.S.) will also have access to Apple Intelligence and image generation models baked right into the OS, accessible in popular native apps such as Messages.

Designer was also identified by 404 Media as the service used to create pornographic deepfake images of musician Taylor Swift that hit the web earlier this year, though the company is said to have updated it to avoid future such unauthorized explicit deepfakes.

What’s new on Microsoft Designer?

Since its debut last year, Designer has evolved as Microsoft’s go-to platform for creating different types of graphics – right from illustrations to social media posts, backgrounds and brand kits – from text prompts.

Throughout the preview, free users had access to Designer via the web and Edge browser. Meanwhile, those paying for the company’s Copilot Pro subscription got the ability to use it across their workflows within Microsoft 365 apps like Word and PowerPoint.

Now, building on this work, Microsoft is making the service available on Android, iOS and Windows devices with new features to help users create and edit with AI. 

On the creation front, the company is adding a bunch of prompt templates, pre-populated with ideas, styles, and descriptions, to jumpstart the creative process for users. People can test their ideas with these templates to get a hang of how they can write the right prompt to produce high-quality results on the platform.

“When you’re ready, you can even share templates with friends or fellow creators and build on each other’s ideas, sparking inspiration across your creative community,” Sumit Chauhan, corporate VP for the Office product group at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

In addition to these templates, the refined homepage of Designer’s mobile and web experience will feature dedicated categories to create new forms of content, including avatars, emojis, stickers, greeting cards and invitations. The user would just have to select the category and provide the text prompt – or use the provided template (if available) – to get the desired content.

On the editing front, Microsoft Designer is getting the ability to restyle and frame images with AI-generated borders. Both these options would come in handy on mobile devices, as users will be able to upload their photos directly to transform them into styles like doodle, pop art or papercraft. Before this, the AI-powered tool edited images by doing basic stuff like adding filters, removing background or erasing objects. 

Microsoft says it will also get a background replacement feature, which will produce a background from scratch, based on the vision of the user.

Native integration with Windows 11 Photos app

While the dedicated app of Designer will provide users access to AI-powered creation and editing chops, Microsoft says it will also integrate the tool into the inbuilt Photos app of Windows 11. This way, users could edit all their photos right where they are. However, as of now, Microsoft is rolling it out to Windows Insiders.

That said, it’s important to note that free users, either on the web or on platforms like Android, iOS and Windows, will only have limited access to Designer and its capabilities. To generate more content through the tool as well as added capabilities like access within Microsoft 365 apps, users will have to take Microsoft’s Copilot Pro subscription, priced at $20 per month.

“Today, Designer comes with 15 free daily boosts that you can use to create or edit AI-powered images and designs faster. Boosts are automatically used whenever you’re creating or editing images or designs both in the Designer app and where Designer is integrated across Microsoft apps. You can upgrade to a Copilot Pro subscription to receive 100 boosts per day,” Chauhan added.