Adobe’s Secret Weapon in the AI Race? Trust—and Millions of Subscribers

Fortune

Adobe is going all-in on AI, integrating generative and agentic tools across its Creative and Experience Clouds. As the company shifts its strategy, creative and marketing professionals—especially newcomers—face growing pressure to keep up. Here’s what Adobe’s AI push means for the future of creative and marketing work.

Transcript

00:00For decades, Adobe set the standard in creative software.

00:03Tools like Photoshop and Premiere help define entire industries and shape creative careers.

00:09But in recent years, the company has been staking its claim in the fast-moving world

00:14of artificial intelligence by embedding generative and now agentic AI directly into its legacy

00:19products.

00:22And creators are noticing.

00:23Adobe's new AI called Firefly.

00:26They've done a very good job of taking that loyal following and producing Gen.AI in the

00:31format that most of those developers have been used to.

00:35And Adobe's ambitions don't stop at creative software.

00:38The company is now releasing AI tools that are transforming how global brands deliver

00:43marketing campaigns.

00:47But these transformations across the industry are raising tough questions about AI's role

00:51in creative fields.

00:53And who benefits from this new era of automation?

00:55Junior creatives are being pressed by the market to react in AI timing, which is light

01:01speed.

01:02Here's a closer look at how Adobe is adapting to the AI era and how it's helping to shape

01:06the future of creativity and marketing.

01:11For years, Adobe sold box software like Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere for a flat fee.

01:17That changed in 2012 when it moved to a subscription-only model with Creative Cloud.

01:22Definitely a cloud.

01:28Subscriptions gave Adobe a steady, predictable revenue stream and allowed it to update products

01:33continuously.

01:33They've moved from where you buy the product and then can use it essentially for free from

01:38there on out to charging on their way.

01:40That's Steven Messer, the co-founder of an AI sales company called Collective Eye.

01:44With over a decade of experience in the field, he's had a front row seat to the AI boom.

01:49The speed at which its adoption took place, the speed at which people learned to write prompts,

01:57prompt engineering was a word that no one had ever heard of.

02:00But the speed at which they did that was unfathomable.

02:04Gen AI has really changed the creative world dramatically.

02:08By 2022, generative AI was already reshaping how creative work got done.

02:14Tools like OpenAI's DALI and startups like Midjourney let users generate high quality images

02:20in seconds — no traditional software needed.

02:23And when you ask DALI for an image of a koala bear riding a motorcycle, it knows how to create

02:27that or anything else with a relationship to another object or action.

02:31After years of layering smaller AI features into its tools, Adobe made its biggest move in

02:362023 with the commercial launch of Adobe Firefly.

02:40Unlike newer AI startups, Adobe integrated generative AI into familiar tools across its creative

02:50cloud, giving it a head start with a built-in audience.

02:54Across its creative cloud and Acrobat applications, the company reaches over 750 million monthly active

03:01users.

03:02I think Adobe has a loyal base of customers.

03:04So a user of their products can just incorporate Gen AI as part of their workflow, as opposed

03:10to having to learn entirely new applications.

03:13Similar to other generative AI tools, Adobe Firefly can generate high-quality images and

03:18video from text prompts.

03:20But it goes further, powering tools within Creative Cloud apps like Generative Fill and

03:24Expand in Photoshop.

03:25Watch.

03:26Boom.

03:27Text to Vector Graphics in Illustrator.

03:30Take your sketch from this to this in seconds.

03:33And Smart Masking in Premiere.

03:34The Smart Masking feature will help you easily select any object and remove it in one click.

03:40Adobe has a legacy of people who know how to use those products very well, which means

03:44they're already trained, they're already efficient, they know what they're doing.

03:47So if they want to create something very specific, then make it 3D.

03:50Then have it do different things or be in different environments.

03:54Now you're talking about taking that creative license of a professional and just blowing it

03:59out in a much more efficient way.

04:02And the company is also taking a more cautious approach to AI training.

04:06Many AI platforms train their models by scraping content from across the web, raising copyright

04:11concerns.

04:12The New York Times suing OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and Microsoft, for copyright infringement.

04:20But Adobe says Firefly is different, trained only on licensed and public domain content.

04:24Unlike a lot of other software companies, they've actually chosen to build most of their Gen

04:30AI on their own.

04:31Their argument is that it's always licensed creative that they're using.

04:35So that anything that's going to train their Gen AI is going to be safe from threats of

04:42copyright infringement, trademark infringement, etc.

04:46And so their real goal is to go out there and say this is a safe environment.

04:50Adobe is far from alone in this space.

04:52In just two years, the generative AI market has exploded from a market of 191 million in

04:582022 to more than 25 billion in 2024.

05:02When you see foundation models coming up at the speed they're coming up, it is all over

05:07the map. It's not just meta, which is a risk to them.

05:10It's not just runway.

05:11It's not just mid journey.

05:13It's literally a range of people coming out of nowhere.

05:16And it might be people building on top of those models.

05:18Competitors like OpenAI, Canva, Sigma, Runway, Stability AI and Mid Journey are moving fast

05:26with some AI first tools that can be simpler and cheaper than Adobe's offerings.

05:31The risk they run is that their loyal audience looks and says, wait a second, this new tool

05:35actually is easier or is faster or is cheaper or is better.

05:41And if I don't use this new thing, I'm going to lose in the overall game of competition.

05:46Meanwhile, tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Meta are flooding the space with their own

05:52generative AI models.

05:53I look at Meta when they released their new Llama model, they came out with a cartoon version

05:58of everyone and everyone quickly flew on to Meta to make a cartoon version of themselves.

06:03Well, that is the risk to Adobe.

06:05You've never seen the speed at which people are willing to change products just to get

06:10one capability that is at the edge or really hot and exciting.

06:15But Adobe still dominates when it comes to the creative software market, commanding over

06:2080% of market share in 2024.

06:22But the rise of generative AI like Adobe Firefly is reshaping how creative work is done and who

06:29gets to do it, especially for junior talent breaking into the industry.

06:33Junior creatives are being pressed by the market to react in AI timing, which is light speed.

06:39Bruno Lemgruber is an associate professor of design at the University of Southern California

06:44and a creative director at Tabaruba Design with over two decades of experience in the industry.

06:50So things have shifted in such a dramatic way.

06:53Before you would do something in a week or in 40 hours, and now you can do it in one-tenth

06:59of the time.

07:00And if the market is pressing people to respond in AI timing, then you're being neglected the

07:07time to reflect and to use critical thinking.

07:11And for senior designers, senior creators, you have enough experience to know what you're

07:16skipping.

07:17But if you're a junior, you're actually skipping a learning curve.

07:21AI is also changing the structure of creative teams.

07:26Tasks once given to interns or junior staff can now be done instantly with generative tools.

07:31Before I would have interns or junior designers to try things that I kind of have a vague idea

07:39that will probably not work.

07:41But I say, hey, let's try it out.

07:43Now I can quickly experiment that with AI.

07:46There are many things that before you would require junior creatives to be involved.

07:54And now you don't need them.

07:55When it comes to the creative process, AI has advantages too, like saving time and making

08:00it easier to experiment.

08:02AI gives you the time.

08:04Because you didn't invest hundreds of hours, you can quickly experiment, prototype something.

08:09Do I like that?

08:10If it's there where I want it to go, no it's not, then like revise and do it again.

08:16You're not stuck on like, oh, I already spent like 200 hours, I need to keep going.

08:21Now, some creative professionals say they are under pressure not just to use AI, but prove

08:26they're keeping up.

08:27In design and creative direction in general, if you don't embrace AI, you're most likely

08:33going to become irrelevant.

08:35As creatives adapt to a shifting landscape, Adobe is pushing beyond generative AI into what's

08:40known as agentic AI, or AI agents.

08:44While generative AI creates content based on data patterns, agentic AI acts more like a

08:49digital assistant, automating multi-step processes.

08:53Agentic AI is generally a new concept that people are talking about.

08:57And this is where the AI does its own thing on its own.

09:01And it starts to make decisions on behalf of the end user for you.

09:05Adobe is integrating these AI agents into its creative cloud and marketing products like

09:10GenStudio and the recently launched Agent Orchestrator.

09:14The company says these tools help marketers streamline their entire content supply chain.

09:19Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing lets marketers create their own on-brand emails, paid

09:25social ads, and display ads.

09:28The tools are built to automate tasks like asset creation and performance tracking, helping

09:32brands scale and adapt campaigns more efficiently.

09:36And that strategy appears to be driving results.

09:40In fiscal year 2024, Adobe reported record-breaking revenue, with joint creative and marketing enterprise

09:46deals growing by more than 100% year over year.

09:50I don't think people have been paying enough attention to Adobe's approaches to GenAI.

09:56They are doing some pretty interesting things.

09:57They are playing with different ways to incorporate GenAI into existing products.

10:04But I don't know if they've really gotten the attention of the world.

10:07And I think that's what people keep waiting for, is what are they doing on the frontier that's

10:11really going to blow people away.

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