How AI is shaping Adobe’s product strategy

Summary - Adobe’s approach is always been creative-centric.  And it is also important that this approach concentrates on the combination of workflows, their end results and the quality enhancement of the content. One can expect complete generative AI support in all Adobe applications used for content creation and editing. 

Adobe was established in 1982.  The Focus area right from the beginning was digital fonts and printing software.  In the mid-80s, Adobe introduced Illustrator, its first user software. Ever since then, Adobe has specialised in software to create and publicize a diverse range of content -  photography, animation, graphics, illustration, print, motion pictures and multimedia and video.

At its corporate headquarters in San Jose, California, Adobe has a research centre.  This was set up to combine – the transformation of early-stage creative ideas into technologies and revolutionary academic inventions that can have a strong industry impact. Today, the thrust of the research revolves mainly around artificial intelligence.  Therefore, naturally, Adobe's artificial intelligence now becomes the core of its product strategy.  It will be base for most of the new developments.  Computer vision technology for visual design and graphics administration and Machine learning will be at the core of Adobe’s plans for the present and the foreseeable future.

Creative AI for Cloud Suite

Like every year, in October 2022, at Adobe’s Max 2022 event the company presented to the gathering its technology and product innovations being developed currently and technology trends for 2023. As part of their creative cloud suite, Adobe showcased an array of new artificial intelligence features.  But not limited to that, one can also expect more constructive AI support in all Adobe applications used for content creation and editing.  Interesting add-ons like text-to-image or text-to-video in Photoshop and Premiere Pro are on the anvil.    

Adobe’s approach is always been creative-centric.  And it is also important that this approach concentrates on the combination of workflows, their end results and the quality enhancement of the content. Interactive competencies between most used Adobe applications, collaborations with the camera or mobile phone manufacturers or with other major brands and a lot more have been already announced.  The intention is to motivate creative networking.

Generative AI for next-level photo and video creation

In the visual and graphic industry, this year, AI-generated images take the center stage.  And naturally, Adobe artificial intelligence leads the path.  As mentioned above Adobe is poised to bring in Generative AI for text-to-image or video creation capabilities. And you can very much add your signature touch to these creations, as these AI-generated images will be editable in Photoshop with all its tools.  It is interesting to note here that Adobe perceives this new capability and human creativity as a confluence and believes that AI is here to widen the horizons of human creative opportunities.  Soon after Adobe Max 2022, Adobe Stock announced that it has started accepting AI-generated images, in its depository from the contributors.  However, to make sure about legal, commercial and technical values of such inputs, the contributors will have to adhere to strict submission standards.

Adobe artificial intelligence will be offered to non-designers or those with lesser acumen. Adobe doesn't want to ignore this market segment also.  These users too will soon be able to use the text-to-image option on Adobe Express, create templates and if required even edit them using the same technology.  With such simple and faster tools at hand, even non-designers can accomplish their vision. 

New Photoshop filters and features

Adobe has also made various improvements to its flagship app Photoshop. Several new intelligent functions have been added through Sensei AI tech and have rendered it easier to use and smarter. 

• Better selection – With a single click, now you can accurately select complex objects in an image.   
• Masking complex and brushing – This feature, yet in beta, allows you to mask complex images and make adjustments to the rest of the area easily and quickly. 
• Neural filters for photo restoration – This feature is also in beta at the moment.  The neural filters help to restore damaged and old photos, remove imperfections and put life into them.
• Remove background – The beta version of one-click background removal is now ready.   
• Delete and Fill – Deleting a selected object and refilling the area is now much simpler.  With one single action you can remove a selected object and the area will be filled up on its own by content-aware fill. 

Lighting up your creativity

Similarly, various useful features have also been added using Adobe artificial intelligence to Adobe Lightroom, such as: 

• Edit and compare together – You will have different versions of an image side by side simultaneously and you can now compare them and work on them suitably.    
• Select an object – You can paint an object approximately and technology will select the object with precision. 
• Select people – In an image, you can now select a particular person or a group of people.  Also, you can select a person’s body parts separately, from the right-hand panel.   
• Content-aware removes – Similarly to remove an object select it approximately and the new Lightroom will remove that object with precision on its own.  It will also refill the empty area with content-aware fill.

AI-augmented features to power Adobe apps

The collaborative themes are now further enhanced.  As part of it now there is increased interaction between apps and devices.  Based on Frame.io’s technology, Adobe has created a new system, which is the first of its kind in the industry and is assured to be a benchmark for the next decade.  This system allows the user to shoot a video and send it from the camera to Adobe cloud straight away.  So the content is instantly available for post-production editing with the help of Premiere Pro or After Effects.  This way, it can save costs and time, since the content can be transmitted immediately from the production studio to the editing room.  

All these announcements were accompanied by a bundle of advancements in the software and new Adobe artificial intelligence capabilities.  To put a long story short, there is a plethora of developments coming from Adobe and creative designers are looking forward to them with excitement.