Pantone Launches AI-Powered Color Palette Generator to Streamline Design Workflows

Pantone just made an AI tool that's actually useful

Like every company in the world, Pantone thinks you really need AI help to do your job. Unlike most companies, however, the people who created the esperanto of color matching might have actually developed something useful. Today, Pantone is announcing a generative AI model that can automatically create a color palette. It was trained in-house on six decades of proprietary color research papers and articles, which is now available in Pantone Connect's extension for Adobe apps. I don't know if designers will be into the idea of chatting with an AI to find their new product's color palette, but according to Pantone, many are eagerly waiting for such a helper. "We observed that palettes are critical to designers and that creating palettes is a pain point for many designers in that it is, you know, time-consuming," says Ora Solomon, Pantone's VP of Product and Engineering. "There isn't like a one-stop shop for inspiration." The system works like any other chat-based AI: Write a prompt with whatever you have in mind and you will get a color palette ready to go, along with a rationale that explains the palette and links to support the AI suggestion. Once you have this document, which looks like an executive summary with a line of color swatches on the top, you can refine it with further prompts just like you do with most chat-based AIs. The genesis of the new Pantone Palette Generator was a practical alignment of corporate strategy and customer needs, Solomon tells me. "Pantone is owned by a parent company called Veralto. Veralto has a technology strategic partnership with Microsoft," Solomon explains, setting the stage for the collaboration.

Need a colour palette for your next design project? There's an AI generator for that

The Pantone Palette Generator is designed to save hours of research. Struggling to find the right colour palette for your next design project? There's now an AI generator for that. The Pantone Palette Generator, now in beta, adds a chat-based interface into the colour matching and trends company's digital platform Pantone Connect. The idea is to help designers speed up the research and inspiration phase of projects by streamlining their colour decision-making and saving hours of research. Users can ask questions like, "What colors evoke optimism in Gen Z?" or "Show me palettes inspired by 1970s fashion editorials" to get ideas for palettes, which can be downloaded and shared (see our guide to colour theory if you need a refresher). Does this mean AI will now be deciding what colours are in vogue? Pantone says not. The palettes generated will be based on user's instructions and its own forecasting work. Built using Microsoft Azure, the Palette Generator uses a Retrieval-Augmented Generation, which combines a generative language model (LLM) with an information retrieval system intended to provide contextually relevant answers. The Palette Generator semantically searches Pantone's Color Insider and trend forecasting articles to deliver palettes grounded in Pantone Color Institute insights, the company says. During the open beta phase, the Palette Generator is available to all Pantone Connect users, including those with free (basic) accounts. It currently supports Pantone's Fashion, Home & Interiors library, with plans to expand to the full library in the near future. Users will also be able to use the Palette Generator to incorporate Pantone Colors of the Year.