Microsoft has rolled out a new preview update for Windows 11 Insiders that significantly enhances Notepad, adding AI-powered text generation and editing tools alongside broader formatting support. The update introduces a redesigned welcome screen describing Notepad as “the essential text editor, enhanced,” signaling a shift from its longstanding minimalist identity.
One of the headline additions is a suite of AI-based features that can generate new text or improve existing content. These tools display results incrementally, similar to popular conversational AI interfaces, and require users to sign in with a Microsoft account to access the functionality. Microsoft emphasizes that these AI tools are optional and can be disabled in Notepad’s settings.
In addition to AI capabilities, the preview brings expanded Markdown support, allowing users to work with bold and italic text, tables, strikethroughs, and nested bullet lists directly within Notepad. This boosts the editor’s usefulness for more structured writing and documentation tasks without needing third-party apps.
The update also includes improvements to Paint, another classic Windows app. New features there include the ability to create AI-generated coloring book pages and a more capable Fill tool that responds intelligently to image content. Both updates are currently available to Windows 11 Insiders as part of Microsoft’s ongoing effort to integrate modern productivity enhancements into core system apps.
