Pantone and Microsoft Corp. have joined forces for a new tool using Azure OpenAI to help designers amplify their craft. 

Pantone 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.

Sky Kelley, president, Pantone, said,

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

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 color library in seconds.

Kathleen Mitford, corporate vice president, Global Industry Marketing at Microsoft, said, 

“Pantone is showing the world what it means to lead with AI — transforming an industry long grounded in physical design. 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.”

AI-Powered Palette Generator

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.

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 multilanguage 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 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.

Available today 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.

Read Next

Estée Lauder Companies Creates a Beauty AI Innovation Lab

Pantone Launches Color Libraries for Aluminum Packaging

Kenvue Enters 5-Year Collaboration with Microsoft