Adobe's AI shifts from 'being in awe of everything' to actual productivity gains

By Jon Swartz

Adobe's approach highlights the need for AI companies to think deeply about content moderation and protecting their brands

Adobe Inc. is putting a creative spin on generative AI with apps and a partnership to animate business productivity.

At the desktop-publishing pioneer's annual conference in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Adobe (ADBE) announced a new AI-powered ad-creation platform, called GenStudio, for advertising and marketing campaigns, alongside updates to Adobe's Firefly generative-AI model, which debuted a year ago. Firefly is what's known as co-pilot technology, which leverages the company's software tools to create original content.

Read more: Adobe enters AI fray with Firefly

Additionally, Adobe and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) detailed a technology partnership to help marketers overcome application and data silos and more efficiently manage everyday workflows.

"If 2023 was about just being in awe of everything that's happening and having fun with AI, 2024 is the beginning of leveraging AI to have real productivity gains," David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of Adobe's digital media business, said at the event.

"We talk about taking our customers out of the playground and getting them onto the platform," Wadhwani said.

"The exponential value of AI comes from how successful it makes you in your daily tasks and workflows," Adobe Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen added. The company plans to introduce audio, video and 3-D elements this year.

Like other tech companies pursuing generative AI, Adobe has integrated generative-AI tools into its products. In Photoshop, for example, Firefly users can fill in areas of an image using text commands, giving them more control over the creative process.

At the same time, Adobe's approach highlights the need for AI companies to think deeply about content moderation and protecting their brands, Andy Parsons, senior director of the Content Authenticity Initiative at Adobe, said in an interview.

Adobe launched that initiative - an association promoting the use of labels to show whether content is AI-generated or not - in 2020, with the New York Times and Twitter (now X) as the only other members. Since then, it has swelled to more than 2,500 members and is helping the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, known as C2PA, develop an industry-standard label that shows where a piece of content has come from and how it was created.

Customers including Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. (META), Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOGL) (GOOG) Google, IBM Corp. (IBM) and BBC News are using Content Credentials, an open technology powered by C2PA, Parsons said in a blog post Tuesday.

Adobe is also attempting to determine how some business customers could generate copyrighted content and has teamed up with Mattel Inc. (MAT), Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) and NASCAR on that effort.

"2024 is proving to be the year when GenAI capabilities move from fantasy to real-world production," said Bob O'Donnell, president and chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research.

The primary reason companies haven't done much with generative AI is copyright-related concerns, according to a recent study by the market researcher, which found that 70% of companies it surveyed cited that reason.

-Jon Swartz

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03-26-24 1613ET

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