Paint

As with Notepad, another in-box app that dates back to the earliest days of Windows, Microsoft has extensively updated Paint since the initial release of Windows 11. Some of these updates modernized the user interface, adding support for system features like Dark mode. But most of the new features are tied to Paint's core bitmap image creation and editing capabilities.
✅ Tip: Unlike Notepad, none of Paint's new features, AI or otherwise, can be disabled. When it comes to Paint, what you see--from a functional standpoint--is what you get.
⚙️ Defaults
The features you see in Paint will vary based on the type of PC you have. That is, regardless of your PC, you will see most of the features that Paint offers. But those with a Copilot+ PC will see additional image creation and editing features. You can see the difference between each by opening the Copilot menu in the Paint toolbar. On most PCs, you will see the following options.

But on a Copilot+ PC, you will see additional options.

I discuss all these new features in this chapter.
? Customize
Paint doesn't offer much in the way of customization, and there is no way to disable any of its image creation and editing features, AI-based or not. But here are some key features you can customize:

The app theme. By default, Paint will use the app theme—Light or Dark mode—you configured in the Settings app (in Personalization > Colors > Choose your mode). But you can override this choice for Paint only in the app's otherwise sparse settings interface, which you can find by clicking the "Open settings" (gear) icon in the upper-right of the toolbar.

Whether to add a watermark to AI-generated content created with Paint. By default, Paint doesn't add a visual watermark to identify when an image you create or edit in the app was made with AI. But you can configure Paint to add that watermark automatically every time or to ask you each time when you save an AI-created image. You do so in Paint settings, as per the above instructions. If you do enable this feature, the watermark will appear as a small Copilot logo in the bottom right of the image.

✅ Tip: This watermark is a so-called content credentials identifier, based on the C2PA standard used by most popular image editing apps. There are two components to it: The small visual watermark that you and other humans can see and some meta-data that lets compatible software programs identify the work as AI-created.
The toolbar. By default, Paint's rather large toolbar is displayed at the top of the app window, giving you access to its many command-based tools. There's no way to make this toolbar smaller or to hide specific commands. But you can configure the toolbar to auto-hide if you'd like, in which case you can then use a "Show toolbar" button to the right of the Paint menu and Quick access icons to temporarily display it. To do so, click the small caret ("v") at the far right of the toolbar and then choose...