With its latest AI innovations, Adobe doesn’t want to wipe people out of the picture just yet

Adobe wants to show the world that AI can do more for designers than produce terrifying JPEGs.

AI-powered generative image search engines like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion have stolen the hearts of AI enthusiasts since their release. Some even warned that this could be the case Death of PhotoshopAdobe’s signature imaging software.

But after seeing Adobe’s latest innovations at the MAX conference in Los Angeles this week, the company is taking a different approach with AI.

In a press conference at the conference on Wednesday, Scott Belsky, Creative Cloud’s chief product officer and executive vice president, said Adobe aims to empower professional users with AI as a powerful assistant and allow non-designers to create without having to buy a copy of “Creative Cloud for Dummies”.

For example, during its annual “Sneaks” presentation, Adobe showed off Project Blink, a new AI-powered video editing tool that allows users to edit videos similar to modifying a Microsoft Word document.

Using AI, Blink analyzes images and audio in a video file to create an editable script that allows users to search for specific objects and sounds, extract key moments, or remove video errors. This can be done through a web browser, with no Premiere Pro knowledge required.

Video starts at 46:58, the Project Blink demo during the “Sneaks” presentation.

“When you get to Photoshop or Premiere Pro [for the first time] and start with a blank page, don’t feel safe. You feel the opposite, you feel fear. You feel like you’re the dumbest person in the world. You have to go through the learning curve to get comfortable with these products,” Belsky said.

“We need to help people become more successful faster. We weren’t good at that in the past.”

Adobe’s approach to generative AI

While DALL-E and Stable Diffusion have shown the possibilities of AI-generated art, the technology has also sparked debate about intellectual property ownership.

At the conference, Adobe announced that it would include Nikon and Leica as partners in its Content Authenticity Initiative. The project involves attaching a photographer’s credentials to photo metadata, which will be important as AI-generated images emerge.

In a statement, an Adobe spokesperson wrote, “Adobe’s vision for generative AI demonstrates how this technology can enhance creativity rather than replace it, and how generative AI can be combined with Adobe creative tools to be more powerful together.”

Similar to DALL-E, Creative Cloud users can use generative AI, but in different capabilities.

At MAX, Belsky showed an example of using AI to generate pre-built templates and unique text elements from text prompts. In an example shown during Sneaks, “Behind the Seen” can create full 360° panoramas from a single image without requiring a creator to learn new skills.

It’s no secret that Adobe is trying to attract non-professional content creators, marketers, and small businesses with Creative Cloud Express.

These users overwhelmingly chose Canva, which pioneered drag-and-drop design. The company has over 100 million users, reportedly four times the number of users than Creative Cloud. The Australia-based design startup is valued at US$40 billion and expects sales of over US$1 billion in 2022. In 2019, Adobe estimated that this segment of the design market could reach as much as $41 billion by 2023. Canva is currently expanding its product offering to include website design following Adobe’s acquisition of Figma.

Belsky said much of this strategy for Adobe focuses on high demand for social media content, and provided insight that Adobe currently spends more than half of its marketing budget on social media. Earlier this year, Creative Cloud Express added an integrated social media scheduling tool to improve user workflows.

At least one Adobe executive praised Express for introducing users to some concepts explored in Photoshop, including how layers are arranged.

“We recently conducted a study that showed that a user understood either seven basic tasks or four basic concepts [on Adobe apps]they could use Photoshop pretty well,” said Maria Yap, vice president of digital imaging at Adobe.

Yap, who oversees product and technical leadership for Photoshop and Lightroom, hopes Creative Cloud Express can serve as a bridge to Adobe’s other professional apps

“We’re trying to understand that now. How can I teach you this in your first experiences so that you want to continue to pursue your creativity?”