Pantone launches new AI tool to create custom colour palettes

Global colour consultancy Pantone, which provides trend forecasting and digital solutions for the design community, has teamed up with Microsoft to launch its first AI-driven product experience utilising its decades of colour research to create custom colour palettes.

The Pantone Palette Generator, a new beta feature in Pantone Connect, integrates Pantone’s 60 years of research into colour science with modern generative AI to offer a chat-based interface for designers that streamlines colour decision-making.

The AI tool, built entirely on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI and AI Foundry stack, has been designed to help users expedite the research and inspiration phase of design, by exploring colour palettes, leveraging trend forecasting data and generating design concepts within Pantone Connect.

With the Palette Generator, designers can explore, generate, and refine colour palettes, and create custom palettes drawing from thousands of colours from Pantone’s vast colour library in seconds.

The generator is easy to use, and for the first time, allows creatives to prompt Pantone directly inside Connect with questions such as “Show me colours that evoke optimism in Gen Z” or “Build a palette inspired by 1970s fashion editorials” and receive palette suggestions grounded in Pantone Color Institute’s proprietary forecasting data.

Sky Kelley, president at Pantone, said in a statement: “For over 60 years, Pantone has empowered creatives to confidently make colour-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 colour and trend data efficiently as they bring their visions to life.”

The Palette Generator currently supports Pantone’s fashion, home and interiors library with plans to expand to its full library in the near future. User-generated palettes can be added directly to Pantone Connect with the ability to analyse, download and share for collaborative design workflows, which Pantone states will “save hours of research while inspiring creative exploration”.

Looking ahead, users will also be able to leverage Palette Generator to incorporate palettes around the upcoming Pantone Colour of the Year 2026, which will be announced in early December, as well as the inclusion of all past Pantone Colour of the Years.

Deb Cupp, president and chief revenue officer, global enterprise sales at Microsoft, added: “Pantone is demonstrating what it looks like to use AI in a transformational way, reimagining an industry historically rooted in physical design.

“Together, we’re not just accelerating design workflows with Azure OpenAI, we're showcasing how AI can unlock new levels of creativity, productivity, and innovation across every industry.”