In order to get the AI art generator ready for a larger deployment to Microsoft Edge later this month, Microsoft has started to roll out Image Creator from Microsoft Bing in a preview to a few regions. The business detailed the constraints that Image Creator would have on the suggestions that users produce in a blog post and linked video, as well as demonstrated how it functions.

Microsoft said last week that it will be introducing AI art to both Bing and Edge, creating the art using the more sophisticated DALL-E 2 algorithm. It seems that Image Creator will be available on Bing.com and that an Edge-related version will follow soon after. The business demonstrated Image Creator, which can carve out a short vertical column to display search results and other information as well as some helpful tools, functioning within the Edge sidebar. You may use the new image creator from this page.

Microsoft demonstrated in a video how people may create a prompt by utilising common phrases like painting styles. In the video below below, you can observe how quickly Image Creator returns four modest outcomes. It's unclear if that will be indicative of performance in general. It's also unclear if quick creation will be constrained by some form of credit system or other metre.

Microsoft also shown Image Creator working inside of Edge.

Microsoft's strategy in this case is more social: the illustration shows how a user can utilise Image Creator's content creation capabilities to imagine their "dream house," which they can then post on social media. Once more, four photos were created and the image emerged in a couple of seconds.

According to Microsoft's blog post, the AI art generating tools will function similarly to existing Azure cloud services such as Midjourney and DreamStudio. “We’ve found that generally, Image Creator works best when you type in a description of something, with additional context like location or the art style you’d like to emulate, as opposed to a more limited description," Microsoft said.

Microsoft will also use AI to filter searches, using the same signals that help Microsoft Defender detect harmful websites. Microsoft stated that the blocklists and classifiers will be used to “lower the risk of offensive prompts being used," Microsoft said.

Interestingly, Microsoft is also using extra technologies to overcome biases observed in AI picture generation. (Microsoft did not elaborate, although anecdotally, certain generic prompts appear to favour outcomes with specific skin hues.)