Good morning, AI enthusiasts. Adobe just wrapped up MAX 2025, taking its most ambitious leap yet toward an AI-powered future of creativity.

From embedding agentic assistants directly inside its apps to uniting the top AI models under one plan, the company is reshaping how creators imagine, design, and deliver content.

To explore these innovations and what they mean for both creators and enterprises, we sat down with David Wadhwani, President of Digital Media business at Adobe, for an exclusive Q&A.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Adobe’s vision for the AI era

• Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio

• AI assistants for creative work

• Partnering to advance AI-powered creativity

• The ultimate creative skill for the AI age

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

ADOBE’S VISION

🔮 Adobe’s vision for the AI era

Image: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: At MAX 2025, Adobe unveiled a unified AI strategy bringing the top creative models—spanning image, audio, and video—into one plan, while introducing conversational experiences powered by agentic AI across Adobe Firefly, Photoshop, and Adobe Express.

Cheung: You just wrapped up Adobe MAX, where AI took center stage. How is Adobe evolving its vision for this era of creativity, and what stood out most this year?

Wadhwani: I’ve attended MAX for 22 years, and our strategy has never been more important as creators navigate rapid changes in AI. At MAX, we introduced a single plan with access to leading models and creative tools for images, audio, and video.

Users can now generate unlimited images and videos through Dec. 1. The response has been incredible — creators are exploring the new Firefly app, and businesses are scaling up content production with our enterprise solutions.

Wadhwani added: As AI reshapes how we can express ideas, our vision is to put creators at the center of two major forces reshaping creativity today: generative tools powered by AI models and conversational interfaces powered by AI agents.

We’re developing the best creative AI tools for a growing universe of customers. Our apps now integrate models from Adobe, Google, OpenAI, Runway, Luma AI, and others. We’re also bringing conversational experiences to Firefly, Adobe Express, and Photoshop.

Why it matters: By doubling down on generative and agentic experiences, Adobe is reimagining creativity as a shared process where humans imagine and AI builds — amplifying ideas at unprecedented scale. The company’s big bet: the next creative advances will be via collaboration between human intuition and machine intelligence.

FIREFLY

🧠 Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio

Image: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: Adobe is turning the Firefly app into a full creative AI studio, combining third-party models and its own commercially safe AI with pro-grade video, audio, and image tools so creators can ideate, produce, and deliver everything in one place.

Cheung: The Adobe Firefly app has evolved into an all-in-one creative AI studio. What’s the biggest change in how users will experience it?

Wadhwani: Firefly now supports every stage of content creation, with several AI model options and video, audio, imaging, and design tools—including studio-quality features like Generate Soundtrack, Generate Speech, and a timeline-based video editor.

Creators can now go from a spark of inspiration to a finished piece of content without ever leaving the app.

Cheung: You’ve also continued to work on Firefly models. Can you tell me more about the latest Firefly model innovations showcased at MAX?

Wadhwani: We introduced Firefly Image Model 5, which generates native 4MP images with photorealistic lighting, natural textures, and anatomical accuracy, while maintaining coherence across complex scenes. 

New editing features like Prompt to Edit and Layered Editing give creators more control and flexibility. Audio capabilities have also expanded, with Generate Soundtrack powered by the Firefly Audio Model and Generate Speech, a text-to-speech tool built on Firefly Speech Model and ElevenLabs’ AI.

Wadhwani added: With all Firefly models trained only on content Adobe has rights to use, and not on user data, our models ensure creators can confidently use what they generate in their work and campaigns.

Why it matters: Adobe is bridging the fragmented creative experience that has long forced creators to stitch together different tools. With the Firefly app, the entire process (from idea to output) happens seamlessly in one place. It’s a shift from juggling software to simply creating.

AGENTIC AI

🤖 AI assistants for creative work

Image: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: Adobe is embedding agentic AI in its apps, turning assistants into active teammates that can perform repetitive tasks, automate workflows, and coordinate across projects, so that creators can focus on creating.

Cheung: Tell us about the agentic capabilities built by Adobe. What led to introducing agents directly inside tools, rather than offering them as new standalone products?

Wadhwani: By embedding the AI assistants directly into apps like Photoshop, Express, and Firefly, these assistants can help creators move faster by automating repetitive tasks, offering personalized suggestions, and guiding creatives through complex workflows, with every action happening in context.

In Express, you can iterate on content with a simple chat and make changes without starting over. In Photoshop, you can ask for help organizing assets or applying edits in bulk and easily switch between conversation and hands-on editing – without ever leaving your canvas.

Wadhwani added: We also previewed Project Moonlight, a personal orchestration assistant for Firefly that connects workflows across multiple Adobe apps and beyond.

Why it matters: Agents that execute, adapt, and collaborate free creators from repetitive tasks and turn time once spent managing processes into time spent making ideas real. As these agents grow more capable, they could evolve into true creative partners that anticipate needs, refine ideas, and accelerate the entire creative cycle.

PARTNERSHIPS

🤝 Partnering to advance AI-powered creativity

Image: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: Adobe has partnered with Google and YouTube to give creators more choice and flexibility to work with industry-leading tools, access top AI models, and create with confidence.

Cheung: You also announced several new partnerships at Adobe MAX. Can you elaborate on what they are and why they’re important?

Wadhwani: The partnerships we announced reflect our commitment to giving creators the best tools, the best models, and the confidence to bring their ideas to life on their terms and true to their vision. 

Our expanded partnership with Google Cloud will bring Google's advanced AI models, including Gemini, Veo, and Imagen, into Adobe apps. Through Adobe Firefly Foundry, our enterprise customers will also be able to customize Google's models with their own proprietary data to generate on-brand content experiences at scale.

We also announced a new partnership with YouTube, where creators will be able to use Premiere Mobile to access exclusive YouTube Shorts templates with Premiere’s pro-level mobile video editing, making it easier than ever to capture, edit, and publish standout content directly from their smartphones.

Why it matters: By partnering with giants like Google, Adobe is betting that the future of creativity will be shaped by collaboration, not competition. These partnerships also mark a shift toward ecosystem flexibility, where professionals can combine the best technology while staying true to their brand, workflow, and vision.

FUTURE

🚀 The ultimate skill for the age of creative AI

Image: Kiki Wu / The Rundown

The Rundown: As AI takes on more of the technical heavy lifting, Adobe believes the creators who stand out will be those who bring creative direction—the ability to guide the technology with vision and style—to the forefront.

Cheung: What skills or mindsets will become most critical for creators to thrive in this AI-driven world?

Wadhwani: The most valuable skill in the AI era isn’t technical, it’s creative direction: the ability to guide technology with imagination, taste, and intent. 

As AI handles more of the mechanical, repetitive work, what will continue to set creators apart is their vision, storytelling, and willingness to experiment across mediums. Those who embrace AI as another instrument in their creative toolbox will unlock entirely new ways to express themselves. 

At Adobe, we’re building tools that make AI-powered creation effortless, so creators can focus on what only humans can do: imagine, connect, and move people through the power of creativity. Human creativity and emotion can’t be replaced.

Why it matters: In a world where AI can generate with speed and scale, Wadhwani believes human creativity remains the ultimate edge. Like many others in creative AI, Adobe also believes the future of creative work belongs to those who see AI as a collaborator, one that enhances imagination and brings ideas to life with greater impact.