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

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

Every year at Adobe MAX, researchers take the stage to show off technology that exists nowhere in any shipping product. The event is called Sneaks, and it functions as a live window into Adobe's internal research pipeline - equal parts demo session and audience test. Tools that editors use today in Premiere Pro, After Effects, Photoshop, and Firefly have traced their origins back to a Sneaks stage appearance, sometimes years before they became a menu item.

The path from Sneaks to product is not guaranteed. Researchers pitch ideas internally, and a jury vote determines which projects earn a spot on stage. From there, audience response - both in the room and online - plays a meaningful role in whether a concept moves forward into actual development. Adobe has been explicit that viewer feedback shapes these decisions, which makes the event something more than a passive preview.

The gap between a Sneaks demo and a released feature can range from a few months to several years, and some concepts never make the transition at all. That uncertainty is part of what makes the event worth watching closely. A video from creator Josh Olufemi recently traced specific examples of how past Sneaks projects fared - including one tool that launched to little fanfare and reached a million users quickly, and another that was shown on stage and never shipped. It covers examples across Premiere, After Effects, and Firefly, and runs about 13 minutes.

This year's Sneaks takes place Wednesday, November 11, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. ET, hosted by actor Terry Crews. It is part of MAX Online, which is free to register for and stream from anywhere - no travel to Miami Beach required. For anyone working in post-production or generative image and video tools, it is one of the more grounded ways to get a read on where Adobe's research attention is currently pointed.

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