gen‑ai.news
← Back
Multimodal

Adobe is going all in on agentic AI

Adobe is going all in on agentic AI

Adobe used its Max conference in Miami, Florida, to lay out an ambitious direction for AI agents within its creative software ecosystem. Rather than treating AI as a simple suggestion engine, Adobe is positioning agents as active participants in design workflows - capable of accessing projects, executing tasks, and running recurring work in the background without constant user input.

One of the more notable previews was Local Model Context Protocol (MCP) integrations for Creative Cloud tools. MCP is an open standard that allows AI agents - including those built by third parties - to interact with applications in a structured way. By supporting this protocol, Adobe is signaling that users will not be locked into Adobe's own AI stack; instead, they could bring preferred external agents into their Creative Cloud projects to read and modify files directly.

Adobe's Firefly AI Assistant also received new capabilities at the event. Firefly has been Adobe's primary generative image and creative AI brand, and expanding the assistant layer on top of it suggests Adobe wants a more conversational, task-driven interface sitting alongside the core generation tools. The addition of persistent background agents - ones that can keep running a job even when a user has moved on to other work - extends this further, targeting the kind of repetitive production tasks that make up a significant portion of professional creative workloads.

Taken together, these announcements reflect a broader industry pattern of embedding agentic workflows into professional software, but Adobe's approach is notable for its emphasis on openness to third-party agents alongside its own. For creative professionals, the practical implications range from automated asset resizing and versioning to more complex, multi-step production pipelines that require less manual oversight. How well these integrations perform in real-world use - and how much control users retain - will be the key questions as Adobe moves these previews toward general availability.

Read at The Verge (AI) →
Share:X

Also covered by

Enjoy this story? Get the next one in your inbox.

Twice a week: the most important stories in generative image and video AI, distilled into a 2-minute read.

Free. Unsubscribe any time. No spam, ever.

Your next read

What Is MAX Sneaks? Your First Look at Tools That Don’t Exist Yet
Multimodal

What Is MAX Sneaks? Your First Look at Tools That Don’t Exist Yet

Adobe MAX Sneaks is an annual event where Adobe researchers demo experimental technology that has not yet made it into any product. Some of these demos eventually become familiar tools in Premiere, After Effects, or Photoshop - others never ship at all. This year's Sneaks airs Wednesday, November 11, and is free to watch online.

Adobe’s AI experiments let you walk around in photos and interview your characters
Multimodal

Adobe’s AI experiments let you walk around in photos and interview your characters

Adobe's annual Max conference has brought a fresh batch of experimental features, including tools that convert flat photos into navigable 3D scenes, let creators shape AI characters through conversation, and simplify photo editing to a copy-and-paste workflow. These "Sneaks" projects offer a glimpse into where Adobe's generative AI research is heading. None are shipping products yet, but they reflect the direction of the company's broader creative toolset.

Tom Hanks Played Five Characters in This 2004 Christmas Movie
Multimodal

Tom Hanks Played Five Characters in This 2004 Christmas Movie

The Polar Express, Robert Zemeckis's 2004 performance-capture film, is back in seasonal rotation - and it remains one of the more technically unusual productions of its era. Tom Hanks played five distinct characters across 38 days of work, a casting choice that was rooted in story logic as much as technical curiosity. Here is a closer look at how that decision came together and what it meant for the actors involved.