AI Assistant: Creating Images Using Prompts

As a course author, you’ve probably struggled to find relevant visuals for your content—even with access to millions of high-quality images in Content Library 360. Now you have another option: Use AI Assistant to generate custom images based on your prompts.

The image generation feature in AI Assistant is available in Rise 360 and Storyline 360. To access it in Rise 360, click the AI Image icon in the shortcuts bar at the bottom, or go to the AI Assistant menu in the upper right and select Generate Image. You’ll also find a Generate AI Image option under the AI Blocks and Image menus within the block library. To create an image for interactive blocks, such as an accordion or a labeled graphic, select the Generate with AI option after clicking the camera icon. When you replace an existing image, select the Replace with AI option from the edit menu of any image.

In Storyline 360, access image generation either from the Home or Insert tab in the AI Assistant menu within the ribbon, or click Generate Image from the prebuilt prompts in the AI Assistant side panel. To replace an existing image, right click the image and select Replace Picture, then choose Generate image with AI.

Use one of our built-in styles or create your own. Let AI Assistant generate up to four images simultaneously, and then choose the one that best suits your needs. In Storyline 360, you can even select all four to use in your project or download them for later use.

AI Assistant—and your imagination—do the heavy lifting for image generation. But what if you're having trouble getting just the right image with your prompt? The following tips on best practices to create high-quality images with AI Assistant can help.

• Write Clear and Specific Prompts
• Understand Image Generation Limitations
• Play to AI's Strengths
• Switch Up the Image Style (or Create Your Own)
• Mitigate Bias With Proper Prompting

Write Clear and Specific Prompts

To get the best results when generating an image with AI Assistant, be specific in your prompts. Focus specifically on what you want to see, and put the most important parts of your prompts at the beginning.

Use clear and concrete words—not words that might carry multiple meanings. As much as possible, use adjectives to describe every detail of the scene as you see it in your mind. The images below illustrate the difference between a generic prompt and one with words that define specific details.

Prompt: A cat sitting on a couch in a living room, sun shining through a window, staring at a goldfish in a glass bowlPrompt: An orange tabby cat sitting on a black leather couch in a cozy living room, sun shining through a window, staring at a goldfish swimming in a small glass bowl

Pro Tip: If you include what you don't want to see in your prompt, you still draw focus to that element, making it more likely to appear in your generated images. Still stuck? Ask AI Assistant to write a prompt, or use the prebuilt option Create an AI image prompt for help getting started.

Understand Image Generation Limitations

Generating an image with AI isn't like searching for an image in your web browser. Image generation won't return consistent results from prompts that describe complicated scenarios or specific “image choreography.” If you need specific text or are demonstrating how something is done in a specific way, we recommend using Content Library 360 or searching for stock photography.

AI image generation also struggles to generate content from prompts that ask for high visual accuracy and specificity—think people or places where slight visual variations make it very apparent that the image is AI-generated. For instance, if you try to generate an image of Paris, you'll get a creative interpretation of Paris based on what AI Assistant knows about that location. It won't generate actual images of Paris, as the images below demonstrate.

Prompt: Paris with the Eiffel Tower in the background

Play to AI's Strengths

AI Assistant’s image generation feature is highly versatile. You can use it for a wide variety of creative needs, whether grounded in the real world or drifting into fantasy and imagination. It excels at generating realistic images that convey complex emotions or feelings but can also create conceptual, abstract images—even a mix of multiple concepts that are unrelated or aren’t based in reality. Check out the images below for some examples.

Prompt: Closeup of a woman, anxious after realizing she made a huge mistake

Prompt: An elephant piloting a spaceship in orbit, clear and dark background, city night lights visible below

Switch Up the Image Style (or Create Your Own)

If the images generated aren’t quite right, you can always try your prompt in another style. AI Assistant offers several built-in styles, and the prompts behind those styles are visible, so you can copy and customize them. The examples below show how selecting different built-in styles changes the images generated, even as the prompt stays the same.

Pro tip: Generated images can't be recreated exactly, even if you use the same prompt. If you see something that you like, download it or insert it into your training before trying a different image style.

Style: Editorial

Style: 3D Animation

Style: Cinematic Photo

AI Assistant-generated Prompt: Close-up image of a majestic lion, showcasing its powerful face with intense golden eyes, a thick mane that flows like waves of sunlit grass, and a strong jawline. The texture of its fur is detailed, with shades of tawny and hints of darker brown, capturing the essence of its wild beauty. The background is softly blurred to emphasize the lion's fierce expression and regal presence.

You can also create your own custom style to generate unique images, from doodles to digital art styles and in different genres like sci-fi, steampunk, or medieval fantasy. You name it—your imagination is the limit!

Here are some keyword recommendations to help you create brilliant custom styles.

• Medium: the material used. Examples include oil painting, pencil sketch, or vintage photography.
• Art Style: the artistic style desired. Examples include impressionism, realism, and surrealism. You can also use the name of a specific famous artist that represents the style you're looking for, such as Rembrandt, Picasso, and Monet.
• Resolution: how sharp and detailed an image is. Examples include highly detailed, ultrarealistic, and soft focus.
• Color: specific shades used to create images that feature a certain color or tone. Examples include light blue, deep red, and mint green.
• Lighting: lighting effects described through keywords like cinematic lighting, dark, moody, etc.
• Additional details: additional descriptors (modifiers) used to enhance an image.

Mitigate Bias With Proper Prompting

AI Assistant’s image generation feature is experimental and evolving and will sometimes generate results that don’t align with your expectations. Our goal with AI Assistant is to provide you with neutral, diverse, and inclusive images, but sometimes bias is unintentionally introduced during model training. While changes to your prompting can't entirely prevent bias, they can mitigate biased output.

Explore the following examples of how to prompt to reduce bias in your generated output.

Age Diversity

In general, AI image generation models skew young. When not provided with age parameters in the prompt, these models may exclude mature adults in active and positive roles entirely. For example, when generating an image of “an office meeting,” AI Assistant may generate a group of people in their 20s or 30s by default. To include various age groups, try something such as “Office meeting, showcasing people of different ages, from young adults to older adults.”

Prompt: Office meeting, showcasing people of different ages, from young adults to older adults.

Gender Inclusivity

When generating images showcasing people in different professions, AI Assistant may reflect stereotypical gender roles, associating certain professions with specific genders. For instance, asking for “a group of construction workers” may result in an all-male crew. To encourage gender diversity in professional roles, try being specific, with something like “A small group of construction workers, including men, women, and non-binary individuals.”

Prompt: A small group of construction workers, including men, women, and non-binary individuals.

Racial and Ethnic Diversity

Explicitly guiding AI Assistant to reflect a broader spectrum of human diversity helps to reduce racial and ethnic biases—overrepresentation of certain racial and ethnic groups, typically from Western cultures, and underrepresentation of others. When you ask AI Assistant to generate an image of a group of people in certain professions without specifically asking for different racial and ethnic backgrounds, you’ll likely get an image that replicates existing societal biases. To improve racial and ethnic inclusion, get specific with a prompt like, “A group of engineers and developers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds—including Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous, African, and European—participating in a hackathon.”

Prompt: A group of engineers and developers from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, including Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous, African, and European—participating in a hackathon.

Disability Representation

Whether AI-generated or not, media and images often underrepresent people with disabilities. Crafting a prompt that explicitly asks for people with diverse physical abilities encourages AI Assistant to generate images that go beyond generic portrayals and properly represent a wider spectrum of physical conditions. For example, “A physically diverse group of people—including some with visible disabilities such as blindness, mobility impairment, and limb differences and showing mobility aids such as wheelchairs, canes, and prosthetics—engaging in fun activities.”

Prompt: A physically diverse group of people—including some with visible disabilities such as blindness, mobility impairment, and limb differences and showing mobility aids such as wheelchairs, canes, and prosthetics—engaging in fun activities.

Getting just the right image takes trial and error. As you experiment, you'll find what works best for you and your learners. If your prompts still generate biased or offensive content, we encourage you to report any inappropriate output (including the prompts you used) so we can create a better experience for all users.

Video Tutorials

Want to learn more before getting started? Check out our video tutorials for additional guidance on using AI Assistant to generate images.

• Create AI-generated images in Rise 360
• Create AI-generated images in Storyline 360

Articulate 360 Training also has additional video tutorials on using other AI Assistant features.

• Use AI Assistant features in Rise 360
• Use AI Assistant features in Storyline 360

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