Pantone and Microsoft Unite to Enhance Creative Exploration Through AI

Pantone unveils Pantone Palette Generator, built on Microsoft Azure OpenAI, accelerating design workflows within Pantone Connect.

Pantone, the global color authority and provider of digital solutions for the design community, and Microsoft Corp. are joining forces to guide creatives and designers into the future as they increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to amplify their craft. Pantone on Wednesday unveiled its beta version of the Pantone Palette Generator, a new tool built using Microsoft Azure OpenAI that brings Pantone’s expertise in color psychology and trend forecasting into an intelligent, interactive experience within Pantone Connect.

The Pantone Palette Generator is a chat-based interface integrated into Pantone Connect, Pantone’s digital platform for designers that streamlines their color decision-making and communication. The Palette Generator leverages decades of expertise and research from the color and trend experts at the Pantone Color Institute with advanced conversational AI technology to help users expedite the research and inspiration phase of design, by exploring color palettes, leveraging trend forecasting data and generating design concepts within Pantone Connect. With the Palette Generator, designers can create palettes drawing from thousands of colors from Pantone’s vast color library in seconds.

“For over 60 years, Pantone has empowered creatives to confidently make color-critical decisions throughout their design process,” said Sky Kelley, President, Pantone. “By collaborating with Microsoft, we wanted to create a tool that helps jumpstart the research, discovery and inspiration phase – allowing designers to integrate color and trend data efficiently as they bring their visions to life.”

Available for Pantone Connect users, the Palette Generator delivers instant color palettes freshly built around a user’s instructions, while also surfacing the forecasting work used to inform the tool, enabling a fast, inspiration-driven workflow. Powered by Retrieval- Augmented Generation and agentic technology, the Palette Generator semantically searches Pantone’s Color Insider and trend forecasting articles to deliver palettes grounded in Pantone Color Institute insights. During the open beta phase, the Palette Generator is available to all Pantone Connect users, including those with free (basic) accounts.

“Pantone is showing the world what it means to lead with AI – transforming an industry long grounded in physical design,” said Kathleen Mitford, Corporate Vice President, Global Industry Marketing at Microsoft. “Together, we’re accelerating design workflows with Azure OpenAI and showcasing how AI can unlock new levels of creativity, productivity and innovation across every industry.”

Adding Pantone Color Institute insights to designers’ toolboxes with AI

The Palette Generator draws from a rich dataset curated by Pantone’s color scientists, psychologists and trend forecasters at the Pantone Color Institute, enabling users to prompt the assistant with questions like “What colors evoke optimism in Gen Z?” or “Show me palettes inspired by 1970s fashion editorials.” The assistant responds with suggested color palettes based on Pantone’s proprietary research and global trend insights.

Built on Microsoft technologies, including Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI and Azure Cosmos DB, the solution ensures scalability, security and seamless cross-platform integration while safeguarding content, supporting multi-language use and laying a foundation for future innovation.

The Palette Generator currently supports Pantone’s Fashion, Home & Interiors library with plans to expand to its full library in the near future. User-generated palettes can be added directly to Pantone Connect and promptly analyzed, downloaded and shared for collaborative design workflows, saving hours of research while inspiring creative exploration.

Looking ahead, users will be able to leverage the Palette Generator to incorporate palettes around the upcoming Pantone Color of the Year 2026 and all past Pantone Colors of the Year.

Digital transformation for the future of the creative workflow

As Pantone continues to invest in its digital product suite, the company is focused on tools to enhance the future of the creative workflow. In addition to the new Palette Generator, Pantone has also added new features like Design Mode within the Adobe extension, improving navigation and reducing click paths based on user feedback.

For more information on the Pantone Palette Generator or Pantone Connect, including how to create an account, visit www.pantone.com/pantone-connect. Mobile apps for iOS and Android can be downloaded from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, respectively, while the Pantone Connect Extension for Adobe® Creative Cloud® can be downloaded from the Adobe Creative Cloud Exchange website.

Pantone
www.pantone.com | @pantone

Pantone provides the universal language of color that enables color-critical decisions through every stage of the workflow for brands and manufacturers. More than 10 million designers and producers around the world rely on Pantone products and services to help define, communicate and control color from inspiration to realization – leveraging advanced XRite technology to achieve color consistency across various materials and finishes for graphics, fashion and product design. Pantone Standards feature digital and physical color specification and workflow tools. The Pantone Color Institute provides customized color standards, brand identity and product color consulting as well as trend forecasting inclusive of Pantone Color of the Year, Fashion Color Trend Reports, color psychology and more. Pantone B2B Licensing incorporates the Pantone Color System into different products and services, enabling licensees to communicate and reproduce approved Pantone values and improve efficiencies for their users. Pantone Lifestyle brings color and design together across apparel, home, and accessories.

All images courtesy of Pantone LLC.
© Pantone LLC, 2025

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