Have you heard about the new Paint NPU app? If you haven't, it's a planned revamp of the traditional Paint app on Windows that emphasizes the Neural Processing Unit (NPU) on AI PCs. NPUs are like CPUs and GPUs, except they're wholly dedicated to AI processes; as such, from the name of the app, you can put two and two together and deduce that Paint NPU will feature generative AI in some way.

There's still a lot we don't know about Paint NPU, and because the term "generative AI" can cover so many potential features of Paint, it's impossible to say which features will definitely make the cut. However, here are a few AI-powered features that are on my wishlist for Paint NPU.

3 A Cocreator feature without any credit requirements

No need for Microsoft's servers, no need for credits

If you're excited to use AI-powered tools in Paint, you can actually give one a spin right now. The regular Paint app recently received an update that added a "Cocreator" option. You can use this tool to generate art based on the prompts that you give it, and it works pretty well.

The thing is, these requests take up quite a bit of hardware on Microsoft's servers. That's why the Cocreator option has a credit system; you can only generate an image if you have the credits to spare. This prevents people from overloading Microsoft's servers with a ton of requests and prevents other people from using the feature.

If Paint NPU features a return of Cocreator, it shouldn't use Microsoft's servers to fulfill your prompt. Instead, it will likely use the power of your computer's NPU to generate the image for you. As such, there's not much reason for the credit system to stick around, which means you can generate AI art without restriction.

2 An option to "fill in the blanks" in your art

You do what you can, and Paint NPU does the rest

One of the coolest things you can use AI for is getting yourself out of creative ruts. If you're stuck on a project, you can feed the AI all the ideas you're working with and let it generate some solutions. There are a few AI drawing apps that don't work off of prompts; instead, you draw as much as you can and then send it to the AI. The AI will guess what you want to draw, then fill in the rest with its own art. It's a great way to quickly flesh out your ideas; just draw the basics, send it to the AI, and have it do all the heavy lifting.

I think Paint NPU would be a perfect candidate for this feature. After all, people don't usually use Paint to draw masterpieces; it's usually your go-to app if you want to make a quick scribble. And what better way to show off Paint NPU's power than to have a tool that turns those doodles into something bigger, without much effort from your end? It would be a great way to quickly flesh out a concept or idea for a larger piece.

1 AI-powered tools to better enhance your drawings

Using the power of NPUs to make your art look better

Of course, we can do more than just letting AI draw for us. We can also use AI to refine and improve the drawings that we do. And it doesn't have to be something we only activate at the end of the process; AI could also help us while we're drawing. For example, Paint NPU could use AI to help smooth out the lines you draw, so they don't look wiggly or off-center. And maybe - just maybe - AI can finally make the paint bucket tool do its job without flooding the entire canvas with one color.

If Microsoft really wants to go all in with Paint NPU, it could make the app a fully-fledged AI-powered image editor. There are already a ton of ways that AI can help edit an image, from removing the background to seamlessly erasing unwanted elements from an image. If Microsoft enhances Paint NPU with these features, it would give Windows users a powerful set of tools that people would otherwise need to use a premium app or an online web service to access.

What will the Paint NPU app have in store? We'll have to wait and see

While these features would be amazing to see in Paint NPU, we're still only going off of a name. In truth, as long as Paint NPU uses some sort of local hardware AI generation, it will fulfill what its namesake promises to deliver. The potential outcomes range from an entire selection of AI-powered features that make Paint NPU an image-processing powerhouse to simply removing the Cocreator credit system and calling it a day. As such, the ball is now in Microsoft's court; how far will they push Paint NPU, and what features will it develop for the app?