Microsoft Designer

Microsoft Designer is the rare AI design tool where free actually means free: prompt-to-layout generation, solid AI image editing, and watermark-free exports without entering a card. For a birthday invite, a quick social post, or an AI wallpaper, it delivers faster than opening Canva and wading through templates. The DALL-E-derived image generation and the erase/background tools are genuinely decent for a $0 product.

But Designer is a feature wearing an app's clothes, and Microsoft keeps proving it. The Teams integration was retired in February 2026 as image creation folds into Copilot, the free allowance tightened to 15 credits a month in the July 2026 update, and paid credits only exist inside Microsoft 365 bundles. There's no brand kit, no meaningful multi-page workflow, and no team collaboration — the editing ceiling arrives fast the moment you need precise control.

The strategic read: Microsoft doesn't want to sell you a design tool; it wants Designer to make Microsoft 365 stickier. That makes it excellent as a bundled perk and unreliable as a primary tool — the product you learn today may be a Copilot menu item next year.

Verdict: keep it as the free option for casual, one-off graphics — especially if you already pay for Microsoft 365. Anyone producing content on a schedule should pay for Canva or Adobe Express and get a real design platform.