Microsoft’s AI design tool arrives in Teams

Starting this Thursday (1st), Teams users can use Microsoft Designer, which is in preview on Windows 11, right in the app. This tool is similar to Canva and uses Microsoft AI (artificial intelligence) to generate designs for posters, presentations and postcards, for example.

For those in a hurry:

But unlike Canva, Canva accepts requests for text or uploaded images and leverages Dall-E 2 (OpenAI’s text-to-image AI) to create designs, with drop-down menus and text boxes for customization.

Microsoft’s “Canva style” tool

Designer, also available on the web and in the Edge browser sidebar, was originally announced in October 2022. New features, including caption and animation generation, arrived in April. And Microsoft has promised more, with advanced editing features on the way.

Microsoft’s ultimate goal is to monetize Designer through personal and family subscriptions to Microsoft 365. But the company hasn’t explained exactly how far the pricing can go.

However, the company has said that some of the tool’s features will remain free. What features? Well that’s still an open question.

More updates for Teams

The other updates Microsoft announced this Thursday for Teams have less to do with AI.

For starters, users of GroupMe, Microsoft’s free group messaging app, can create Teams calls from any group chat (new or existing) in the program.

Also, starting this week, Teams communities, which allow users to connect, share and collaborate in groups similar to Discord, are working on Windows 11, as is compatibility with Windows 10 and macOS.

As with Teams communities on other platforms, Windows 11 users can create communities, host events, moderate content, and receive notifications about upcoming events and activities.

A new Community Discovery feature, rolling out in the coming days on Windows 11, iOS, and Android, lets Teams users join communities focused on topics like parenting, gaming, gardening, tech, and remote work. Incidentally, it’s up to community owners on iOS and Android to allow their communities to be discoverable in Teams, according to Microsoft.

Owners can approve or deny requests to join their communities and assign owner controls to other group members, as well as create surveys via MSForms and share posts as email if they choose.

In a related update, Teams community members can now record video from their mobile devices using a new capture experience with updated filters and tagging tools.

On iOS, community owners can scan and invite emails or phone numbers from an online document, sheet of paper, or other type of list using their phone’s camera.

The post Microsoft AI design tool comes to Teams first appeared in Olhar Digital.

Source: Olhar Digital