Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs For the first time, some features in longstanding Microsoft apps Notepad and Paint will require a paid subscription. As reported by PC World earlier this year, some newer features that have been added to apps that use AI, such as an image generator in Paint and AI rewriting of text in Notepad, will require a paid Microsoft 365 account.Non-AI features in both Paint and Notepad should continue to work. Those that are not accessible due to a lack of a subscription may be grayed out in the apps. A representative for Microsoft said the company had no additional comment.Microsoft, which has invested billions of dollars in one of the industry’s AI leaders, OpenAI, has been introducing artificial intelligence features into different apps and services, including its Xbox gaming division, and voice and reasoning features for Windows via its Copilot app. Some of the additions have driven up prices in some regions for Microsoft 365, the subscription service it offers for about $10 a month or $99 a year.Not all of Microsoft’s AI efforts have been met with enthusiasm from users. The Copilot feature Recall, which takes snapshots of a user’s activities in order to improve search, was delayed, with Microsoft defending itself against claims that the app was a privacy and security nightmare. In December, news emerged that Recall could capture information such as credit card numbers and social security numbers in the course of taking screenshots of user activity.In the case of Notepad and Paint, it seems as if paywalling the AI features would not affect the ability for Windows users who don’t have a 365 subscription to access and use the apps for everything else. Microsoft posted some details about the new AI features on one of its blogs back in November.Ram Bala, associate professor of business analytics at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University, said that Microsoft’s AI move amounts to a freemium strategy that may help build demand for those features. But in the era of AI, there are more variable costs involved with using large-language models for such tasks. “This makes delivering new AI features for free a loss-making proposition,” Bala told CNET. “Usage-based pricing is going to be much more prevalent for AI products where token usage is a major cost factor for companies.” Bala said that we’ll be seeing more examples of tech companies trying to find a way to price AI-based services. “This goes beyond Microsoft. GPT APIs involve token-based pricing, but Mistrial recently introduced an OCR product which charges $1 per 1,000 pages,” Bala noted. “Companies are going to be experimenting with other forms of resource usages such as number of sessions.”
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