You don't need an expensive Adobe subscription to open Illustrator files. Here's are three free or low-cost alternative ways ...

How do I open an AI file on my PC? To open and view an AI file on your Windows PC, you can use any of the following tools and software. GIMP and Inkscape are some good options to view AI files.

Open-source might not be the first thing you think of with Windows, but these free tools can seriously boost your productivity.

Though you can open this type of file in almost any Adobe application -- including Photoshop, InDesign, Acrobat and Flash -- the .ai file type is native to Adobe Illustrator.

Right-click on the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Host process and select Open file location. The above steps will automatically open the directory in File Explorer where the AI.exe file is located.

The new Microsoft 365-exclusive AI actions sound far more promising than a handful of shortcuts to AI tools in a couple of Windows-native image editors. Still, I'd bet a kidney they won't ease the ...