Microsoft Designer
AI graphic design woven into Microsoft 365, powered by DALL-E image generation.
About
Microsoft Designer is Microsoft's answer to Canva: an AI-first graphic design tool that turns a short prompt into ready-made layouts for social posts, invitations, flyers, and presentations, with DALL-E image generation, background removal, object erase, and restyle-image built in. Its real differentiator is placement — it lives inside Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and Windows 11 Photos, so M365 users generate and insert graphics without switching apps, with Copilot Brand Kits keeping teams on-brand automatically.
The free tier is tight (around 15 AI credits per month, each AI action costing one), and deeper AI allowances increasingly tie to Copilot/Microsoft 365 licensing. The template and stock library is the smallest of the big three, there is no real-time co-editing yet, and precise manual control lags Canva and Adobe Express. Best for M365 households needing quick graphics, not for heavy marketing workflows.
What it can do
- Prompt-to-layout design generation
- DALL-E image creation inside the editor
- Background removal, generative erase, and restyle
- Embedded in Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams
- Copilot Brand Kits for team consistency
- C2PA content credentials on AI-assisted files
Setup
Open designer.microsoft.com and sign in with a Microsoft account. Free tier works immediately; M365 subscribers get a larger shared credit allowance.
Prerequisites
A Microsoft account; Microsoft 365 for the bigger AI credit allowance.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 8/10
Scored 8/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: Verified via vendor site/docs/GitHub and reputable coverage, wave 58; Trending score 80/100 from researcher assessment.
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.