Windows 11's Paint app could soon create animations for you with AI, and boast a Nano Banana-style 'generative edit' (www.techradar.com)

Microsoft is testing two new AI features in Windows 11’s Paint via Windows AI Labs: “Animate,” which turns a static image or sketch into a short animation, and “Generative Edit,” a one-line prompt tool that applies complex scene changes (think Google’s “Nano Banana” demos). Early examples show Generative Edit can convincingly transform a banana’s background into a “fruit jungle,” while Animate can produce fun results but also drifts into odd artifacts as clips progress. Both functions are still experimental, take noticeable time to run, and are currently available only to select Windows Insiders who opt into AI Labs. For the AI/ML community this matters because mainstream OS apps are becoming delivery vehicles for generative models, expanding both reach and expectations for low-friction content creation. Microsoft says the animation model is in-house, signaling continued investment in proprietary generative tooling rather than off-the-shelf third‑party models. The tests highlight typical early-stage trade‑offs: promising creative capability, limited user control (Animate currently needs no prompt), latency and failure modes, and potential compute and safety considerations if these features scale. How Microsoft addresses model evaluation, UX controls, performance (local vs. cloud inference), and content moderation will be important signals for wider adoption in consumer-facing tools.