HP turns to AI to solve printing problems

 HP turns to AI to solve printing problems

HP has announced HP Print AI, a software it is touting as the industry's first intelligent printing experience to address common frustrations users experience when printing web pages.

Aside from AI, the software aims to simplify and improve printing from the setup stage to the support stage.

The software includes a range of tools, although the most interesting feature is what HP calls Perfect Output, which could solve the problem of printing from web pages.

Perfect Output reformats and rearranges content to fit the page in a way that matches what the user sees on the screen.

This feature gets rid of a lot of the unnecessary white space common when printing web screens and can detect and remove unwanted content, such as ads and unnecessary text.

The company says built-in algorithms reduce unnecessary white space and get rid of ads while optimizing image size, making everything fit perfectly on the page the first time.

Perfect Output isn't limited to websites, either. The company says it addresses a common issue with printing spreadsheets, where a problem can occur across pages if columns exceed the page size.

Perfect Output proactively creates a printable spreadsheet without splitting tables and charts across pages, the company said.

The company is rolling out this feature to select customers as a beta. HP says Perfect Output works with any of the company's printers, as long as the correct driver is installed and connected to a Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer.

HP Print AI also uses artificial intelligence to personalize support for each user, with the company saying its intelligent technology anticipates consumers' needs, which is helpful when it comes to setup and remembering user preferences.

There's also a chatbot that allows language-based queries through a large, proprietary language model the company calls the "Type Language Model."

The company also introduced the ability for commercial printers to automatically recognize the type of scanned documents and extract information based on the customer's business needs.

These tools are currently tied to the driver, and HP says they'll feature prominently in the next update to the app, due out next year.