Microsoft opens Windows 11 AI tools to third-party developers

Artificial intelligence in Windows 11, including Notepad, Paint, and Photos, may soon help creators from third-party companies. According to a Microsoft document that surfaced online, the "system AI" from Windows will also be available as an API for developers of other applications.

Windows Latest highlights Microsoft's plans in this regard. As per the brief published in the document describing the technical aspects of utilizing AI in Windows 11, developers can use many elements in their applications. Available AI-based APIs will include Phi Sillica for text generation, OCR for text recognition, and DALL-E for image creation.

Software creators can similarly utilize, for example, the DirectML library to delegate specific tasks to be performed by the GPU. Thanks to optimization for machine learning, this can often be a necessary step to achieve satisfactory real-time performance. It will also be possible to use pre-trained AI models.

Microsoft states that the most reasonable approach for integrating AI into applications on Windows is to use C#, and if more detailed operation control is required, C++. The company also encourages those wanting to create AI-based tools with Linux in mind to use Python and WSL.

Artificial intelligence in Windows 11 is already visible in system applications. An example is the Photos program, which has seen features like background blurring and unwanted object removal in recent months. Another example is Paint, which has introduced a tool for creating images, and Notepad, which now includes options related to text summarization.