AI Usage at a Glance
Jan 1, 2023
ModerationPractice documented: Behance, Adobe's portfolio platform for creative professionals, uses a mix of automated detection and human review to moderate content submitted by its millions of users. According to Adobe's EU transparency report covering 2024, Behance handled 456 intellectual property complaints and took action on 242 of them, with a median response time of under one day.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Mar 21, 2023
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe Firefly is a family of generative AI models that creates images, vectors, patterns, and design templates from text descriptions typed by the user. Launched in public beta in March 2023 and reaching general availability in September 2023, it is built into Photoshop, Illustrator, Express, and other Adobe apps — and is also available as a standalone web tool at firefly.adobe.com.
Practice DocumentedView practice →May 23, 2023
Creative GenPractice documented: Photoshop's Generative Fill lets users highlight any part of an image and type a description to add, replace, or remove objects — for example, changing a background or removing a person. Generative Expand extends a photo beyond its original edges to fill in new scenery. Both features launched in Photoshop in 2023 and were named among TIME magazine's Best Inventions of 2023.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Sep 13, 2023
Creative GenNew evidence: Adobe Releases New Firefly Generative AI Models and Web App Integrates Firefly Into Creative Cloud and Adobe Express
Evidence AddedView practice →Sep 13, 2023
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe Illustrator can now turn a text description into a fully editable vector graphic — the kind of crisp, scalable artwork used in logos, icons, and illustrations. Users can also type a prompt to recolor existing artwork or generate seamless patterns. These features launched in late 2023 and are powered by Adobe's Firefly Vector Model.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Sep 13, 2023
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe Express is a simplified design tool aimed at everyday users — not professional designers — and now includes AI features like generating images from text descriptions, translating designs into 45+ languages, and creating full design templates from a single text prompt. These features became commercially available in September 2023.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 10, 2023
Creative GenNew evidence: Revolutionizing graphic design: Try out the latest innovative Adobe Illustrator features
Evidence AddedView practice →Oct 24, 2023
Creative GenNew evidence: TIME recognizes Adobe Liquid Mode & Photoshop Generative Fill, Generative Expand as Best Inventions of 2023
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
RecommendationPractice documented: Adobe Journey Optimizer uses AI to decide which marketing offer or message to show each individual customer, and when to send it — automatically picking the best combination from among thousands of possible options. It also generates draft versions of emails and push notifications using AI and can run automated experiments to test what works best.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Adobe Customer AI assigns a personalized propensity score to every individual in a company's customer database, predicting how likely that person is to take a specific action — such as churning, buying, or clicking — within a set time window. These scores are used to target marketing campaigns more precisely.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Adobe Mix Modeler uses AI to help large companies understand which of their marketing activities — TV ads, social media, email, paid search — are actually driving sales, and then recommends how to allocate future budgets to maximize return. Adobe reports that its own marketing team achieved an 80% increase in return on media spend using this tool over five years.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Adobe Analytics uses AI to automatically scan hundreds or thousands of business metrics and flag unexpected changes — like a sudden drop in website sales or a spike in customer complaints — before an analyst might notice. It also identifies which factors most likely caused the change and sends automated alerts. This capability has been part of Adobe Analytics since 2016.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2024
RecommendationPractice documented: Adobe Target uses AI to automatically personalize what individual visitors see on a website or app — testing different combinations of content, offers, and designs and gradually directing more visitors to whichever version performs best for each person. The AI Recommendations feature suggests products or content based on each visitor's behavior. These features have been available since approximately 2016–2018.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Feb 20, 2024
ProductivityPractice documented: Adobe Acrobat now includes an AI assistant that lets users have a conversation with any PDF or document — asking questions, requesting summaries, and getting answers with links back to the exact source passage. It launched in February 2024 as a beta and reached general availability in April 2024 as a paid add-on for individuals and enterprise users.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Mar 18, 2024
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe's Substance 3D tools, used by game developers, product designers, and visual effects artists, can now generate photorealistic or stylized surface textures and scene backgrounds from a text description. A user might type "worn leather with copper rivets" and instantly receive a tileable texture ready for use in a 3D model. This capability launched in March 2024.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Apr 12, 2024
Creative GenNew evidence: Adobe’s ‘Ethical’ Firefly AI Was Trained on Midjourney Images
Evidence AddedView practice →Apr 15, 2024
ProductivityNew evidence: Adobe releases Acrobat AI assistant starting at $4.99 a month
Evidence AddedView practice →Apr 16, 2024
ModerationPractice documented: Adobe Stock, which licenses photos, illustrations, and videos to creative professionals, requires contributors to label any content made with AI tools before submitting it. Adobe also uses automated systems to detect policy violations — such as AI images depicting real people or referencing copyrighted characters — and has removed thousands of assets for breaking these rules. This policy launched in December 2022.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Apr 23, 2024
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe InDesign, the professional tool used to design magazines, books, and marketing materials, added a beta AI feature in April 2024 that lets designers generate images from text prompts directly inside a layout — without switching to a separate application.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jun 6, 2024
OtherPractice documented: In June 2024, Adobe pushed updated Terms of Use to all Creative Cloud users that required mandatory acceptance before they could continue using their software. The language alarmed many users and creative professionals who believed Adobe was claiming the right to use their personal work to train AI models. Adobe published clarifications and then released fully revised terms later that month.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jul 25, 2024
Data AnalysisPractice documented: Adobe built an AI assistant directly into its enterprise marketing platform that lets business users ask data questions in plain English — for example, "Which audience segment has the highest churn risk this month?" — and receive answers, charts, and recommendations without needing to know how to run a query. It reached general availability in July 2024.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 1, 2024
OtherPractice documented: Adobe has maintained a formal set of AI ethics principles since 2019, built around three pillars: Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency. Every product team developing an AI feature must complete an internal AI Ethics Impact Assessment before launch. Adobe updated these principles in October 2024.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 1, 2024
Creative GenNew evidence: New Adobe Express for Enterprise Makes It Easy to Accelerate On-Brand Content Creation and Production Across Teams
Evidence AddedView practice →Oct 8, 2024
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe co-founded the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) in November 2019 with The New York Times and Twitter to build open-source tools and industry standards that let people verify where a piece of digital media came from and whether it has been altered. As of January 2026, the CAI has over 6,000 member organizations including major news outlets, camera makers, tech companies, and social platforms
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 14, 2024
ProductivityPractice documented: Adobe GenStudio is a standalone application that marketing teams use to produce on-brand digital ads, emails, and social media content at scale using generative AI. It launched for general availability in October 2024 and connects directly to advertising platforms like Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn so content can be published without leaving the tool.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Oct 14, 2024
OtherNew evidence: Reflecting on our five-year journey with our AI Ethics principles
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2025
Customer SvcPractice documented: Adobe uses an AI chatbot as the primary point of contact for all customer support requests — covering billing, account issues, technical problems, and cancellations. Customers must type "Agent" to bypass the chatbot and speak with a human.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Jan 1, 2025
ProductivityPractice documented: dobe Sensei — now being rebranded as "Adobe AI" — is the underlying AI engine powering intelligent features across virtually every Adobe product. Since its launch in 2016, it has automated tasks like removing backgrounds from photos, converting audio to text, tagging images automatically, and reformatting documents for mobile screens.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Mar 18, 2025
ProductivityPractice documented: Adobe launched a system of specialized AI agents in March 2025 that can autonomously manage marketing tasks for large enterprises — for example, analyzing customer journey data, suggesting improvements, running experiments, and creating audiences — all without requiring a human to manually configure each step. These agents reached general availability in September 2025.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Mar 18, 2025
ProductivityNew evidence: Adobe Expands GenStudio Content Supply Chain Offering for Marketing and Creative Teams to Tackle Skyrocketing Content Demands with AI
Evidence AddedView practice →Apr 2, 2025
Creative GenPractice documented: Adobe Premiere Pro now includes AI tools that can generate new video frames at the edges of a clip — for example, extending a shot by a second or two so it fits a timeline gap — as well as AI-powered text-based editing, automatic captions in 27+ languages, and noise removal from speech recordings. The Generative Extend feature launched in beta in October 2024 and reached general availability in April 2025.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Apr 24, 2025
Creative GenNew evidence: Adobe Content Authenticity, now in public beta, helps creators secure attribution
Evidence AddedView practice →Jul 28, 2025
Customer SvcPractice documented: Adobe Acrobat Sign includes a built-in AI chatbot that helps account administrators and signers with questions about how to use the e-signature platform — answering in plain language and linking to official help articles. Account administrators must enable it in Global Settings before it becomes available to users.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Sep 15, 2025
ProductivityNew evidence: Adobe Announces General Availability of AI Agents for Businesses to Transform Customer Experience Orchestration
Evidence AddedView practice →Dec 5, 2025
ModerationNew evidence: Amplifying human creativity: Adobe Stock defines new guidelines for content made with generative AI
Evidence AddedView practice →Jan 1, 2026
OtherPractice documented: Adobe InDesign version 21.2, released in January 2026, added an AI feature that automatically generates alt text — written descriptions of images used by screen readers to assist people who are blind or have low vision. The feature is on by default and has received mixed reactions from users about its accuracy.
Practice DocumentedView practice →Feb 27, 2026
ModerationNew evidence: EU Digital Services Act Transparency Report
Evidence AddedView practice →In June 2024, Adobe pushed updated Terms of Use to all Creative Cloud users that required mandatory acceptance before they could continue using their software. The language alarmed many users and creative professionals who believed Adobe was claiming the right to use their personal work to train AI models. Adobe published clarifications and then released fully revised terms later that month.
The controversy centered on Section 4.2 of Adobe's terms, which granted Adobe a broad license to user content, alongside separate language allowing Adobe to access content for "content review" via automated and manual methods. A social media post about the update went viral with over 5 million views. Adobe published clarifications on June 6 and June 10 stating it does not and will not train generative AI on user content without consent, then released revised terms on June 24, 2024. Separately, on June 17, 2024, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission filed suit against Adobe over alleged dark patterns in subscription cancellation flows — a distinct but concurrent controversy.
Adobe co-founded the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) in November 2019 with The New York Times and Twitter to build open-source tools and industry standards that let people verify where a piece of digital media came from and whether it has been altered. As of January 2026, the CAI has over 6,000 member organizations including major news outlets, camera makers, tech companies, and social platforms
Adobe InDesign, the professional tool used to design magazines, books, and marketing materials, added a beta AI feature in April 2024 that lets designers generate images from text prompts directly inside a layout — without switching to a separate application.
Adobe's Substance 3D tools, used by game developers, product designers, and visual effects artists, can now generate photorealistic or stylized surface textures and scene backgrounds from a text description. A user might type "worn leather with copper rivets" and instantly receive a tileable texture ready for use in a 3D model. This capability launched in March 2024.
Adobe Express is a simplified design tool aimed at everyday users — not professional designers — and now includes AI features like generating images from text descriptions, translating designs into 45+ languages, and creating full design templates from a single text prompt. These features became commercially available in September 2023.
Adobe Premiere Pro now includes AI tools that can generate new video frames at the edges of a clip — for example, extending a shot by a second or two so it fits a timeline gap — as well as AI-powered text-based editing, automatic captions in 27+ languages, and noise removal from speech recordings. The Generative Extend feature launched in beta in October 2024 and reached general availability in April 2025.
Adobe Illustrator can now turn a text description into a fully editable vector graphic — the kind of crisp, scalable artwork used in logos, icons, and illustrations. Users can also type a prompt to recolor existing artwork or generate seamless patterns. These features launched in late 2023 and are powered by Adobe's Firefly Vector Model.
Photoshop's Generative Fill lets users highlight any part of an image and type a description to add, replace, or remove objects — for example, changing a background or removing a person. Generative Expand extends a photo beyond its original edges to fill in new scenery. Both features launched in Photoshop in 2023 and were named among TIME magazine's Best Inventions of 2023.
Adobe Firefly is a family of generative AI models that creates images, vectors, patterns, and design templates from text descriptions typed by the user. Launched in public beta in March 2023 and reaching general availability in September 2023, it is built into Photoshop, Illustrator, Express, and other Adobe apps — and is also available as a standalone web tool at firefly.adobe.com.
Adobe Mix Modeler uses AI to help large companies understand which of their marketing activities — TV ads, social media, email, paid search — are actually driving sales, and then recommends how to allocate future budgets to maximize return. Adobe reports that its own marketing team achieved an 80% increase in return on media spend using this tool over five years.
Adobe Customer AI assigns a personalized propensity score to every individual in a company's customer database, predicting how likely that person is to take a specific action — such as churning, buying, or clicking — within a set time window. These scores are used to target marketing campaigns more precisely.
Adobe built an AI assistant directly into its enterprise marketing platform that lets business users ask data questions in plain English — for example, "Which audience segment has the highest churn risk this month?" — and receive answers, charts, and recommendations without needing to know how to run a query. It reached general availability in July 2024.
Adobe Analytics uses AI to automatically scan hundreds or thousands of business metrics and flag unexpected changes — like a sudden drop in website sales or a spike in customer complaints — before an analyst might notice. It also identifies which factors most likely caused the change and sends automated alerts. This capability has been part of Adobe Analytics since 2016.
Adobe launched a system of specialized AI agents in March 2025 that can autonomously manage marketing tasks for large enterprises — for example, analyzing customer journey data, suggesting improvements, running experiments, and creating audiences — all without requiring a human to manually configure each step. These agents reached general availability in September 2025.
Adobe GenStudio is a standalone application that marketing teams use to produce on-brand digital ads, emails, and social media content at scale using generative AI. It launched for general availability in October 2024 and connects directly to advertising platforms like Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn so content can be published without leaving the tool.
dobe Sensei — now being rebranded as "Adobe AI" — is the underlying AI engine powering intelligent features across virtually every Adobe product. Since its launch in 2016, it has automated tasks like removing backgrounds from photos, converting audio to text, tagging images automatically, and reformatting documents for mobile screens.
Adobe Acrobat now includes an AI assistant that lets users have a conversation with any PDF or document — asking questions, requesting summaries, and getting answers with links back to the exact source passage. It launched in February 2024 as a beta and reached general availability in April 2024 as a paid add-on for individuals and enterprise users.
In June 2024, Adobe pushed updated Terms of Use to all Creative Cloud users that required mandatory acceptance before they could continue using their software. The language alarmed many users and creative professionals who believed Adobe was claiming the right to use their personal work to train AI models. Adobe published clarifications and then released fully revised terms later that month.
Adobe InDesign version 21.2, released in January 2026, added an AI feature that automatically generates alt text — written descriptions of images used by screen readers to assist people who are blind or have low vision. The feature is on by default and has received mixed reactions from users about its accuracy.
Adobe has maintained a formal set of AI ethics principles since 2019, built around three pillars: Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency. Every product team developing an AI feature must complete an internal AI Ethics Impact Assessment before launch. Adobe updated these principles in October 2024.
Adobe Acrobat Sign includes a built-in AI chatbot that helps account administrators and signers with questions about how to use the e-signature platform — answering in plain language and linking to official help articles. Account administrators must enable it in Global Settings before it becomes available to users.
Adobe uses an AI chatbot as the primary point of contact for all customer support requests — covering billing, account issues, technical problems, and cancellations. Customers must type "Agent" to bypass the chatbot and speak with a human.
Adobe Journey Optimizer uses AI to decide which marketing offer or message to show each individual customer, and when to send it — automatically picking the best combination from among thousands of possible options. It also generates draft versions of emails and push notifications using AI and can run automated experiments to test what works best.
Adobe Target uses AI to automatically personalize what individual visitors see on a website or app — testing different combinations of content, offers, and designs and gradually directing more visitors to whichever version performs best for each person. The AI Recommendations feature suggests products or content based on each visitor's behavior. These features have been available since approximately 2016–2018.
Adobe Stock, which licenses photos, illustrations, and videos to creative professionals, requires contributors to label any content made with AI tools before submitting it. Adobe also uses automated systems to detect policy violations — such as AI images depicting real people or referencing copyrighted characters — and has removed thousands of assets for breaking these rules. This policy launched in December 2022.
Behance, Adobe's portfolio platform for creative professionals, uses a mix of automated detection and human review to moderate content submitted by its millions of users. According to Adobe's EU transparency report covering 2024, Behance handled 456 intellectual property complaints and took action on 242 of them, with a median response time of under one day.
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Adobe InDesign version 21.2, released in January 2026, added an AI feature that automatically generates alt text — written descriptions of images used by screen readers to assist people who are blind or have low vision. The feature is on by default and has received mixed reactions from users about its accuracy.
The AI analyzes images placed in InDesign layouts and writes descriptive alt text for each image frame automatically, without requiring designers to write descriptions manually. This addresses a common accessibility compliance gap in professional publishing workflows, where alt text is frequently omitted. Early community feedback indicates the AI sometimes misidentifies content or generates generic descriptions lacking the nuance needed for meaningful accessibility. The same release also added ARIA roles and labels for EPUB documents to improve screen reader compatibility.
Adobe has maintained a formal set of AI ethics principles since 2019, built around three pillars: Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency. Every product team developing an AI feature must complete an internal AI Ethics Impact Assessment before launch. Adobe updated these principles in October 2024.
Governance is implemented through an AI Ethics Committee (cross-functional) and an AI Ethics Review Board that evaluates the highest-impact AI features before release. During the program's first two years, approximately 125 AI features were formally evaluated; by the first half of 2024 alone, that number had already been exceeded for the full year. Adobe has signed the White House Voluntary AI Commitments and contributes to the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. An AI Ethics principles PDF is published on Adobe's corporate trust site.
