Adobe Doubles Down on AI at MAX 2026
At its MAX event in Miami, Adobe announced a sweeping expansion of AI capabilities across its flagship applications—Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and InDesign—alongside new features for its Firefly creative platform. The company is also introducing a Model Context Protocol (MCP) that will allow Adobe features to be accessed from third-party chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Firefly Builder Enters Figma Territory
Firefly is gaining a new prototyping tool called Builder, currently in private beta, which lets users create designs to showcase ideas—moving Firefly into territory traditionally occupied by Figma. Adobe is also adding a tool for generating on-brand graphs and an image editing feature that allows users to modify part of an image without affecting other objects.
Additionally, Firefly is getting an AI-powered video tool that can assemble a video from clips and other elements such as images and sound effects. Adobe is making its creative AI agent proactive and always on, enabling it to gather more context about ongoing work and be present for any action. The company is also streamlining quick actions, such as removing backgrounds or generating video thumbnails.
AI Features Across the Creative Suite
Adobe has already integrated a substantial number of AI features across apps like Photoshop, Express, Premiere, and Illustrator. At MAX, the company continued this trend with several new additions:
- Photoshop: A new relighting feature and sliders for prompt-based generative styles.
- Premiere: A new color grading system for professionals and an object removal feature for video.
- Lightroom: A tool to correct blinking eyes and a blemish removal feature.
Expanding Third-Party Model Ecosystem
Adobe already offers a wide range of third-party models from companies including Google, Runway, ElevenLabs, Black Forest Labs, OpenAI, Kling, and ByteDance. One of its newer acquisitions, Topaz Labs, is releasing two image models: Wonder 4 for upscaling and denoising, and ImageHDR for converting standard images into HDR.
via TechCrunch AI