Adobe Commits to Agentic AI Across Creative Cloud

Adobe deepened its agentic AI strategy at its Max conference in Miami, unveiling new tools and previews aimed at turning AI agents into design assistants capable of performing creative tasks, editing project files, and running recurring workflows in the background. The company previewed local Model Context Protocol integrations for Creative Cloud, which will allow third-party AI agents from providers such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic to work inside Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and After Effects. These agents would be able to make direct changes to native project files on a user’s computer while keeping layers, vectors, bins, and sequences fully editable for human review. Adobe said the integrations could also connect to other MCP-capable tools, enabling workflows that pull reference material from services such as Google Docs, create assets in Adobe applications, and share final outputs through platforms like Slack. The integrations are not yet available, with a private beta expected in early 2027. Adobe also previewed “always-on” agents designed to handle recurring jobs continuously in the background. These agents could organize incoming assets, perform ongoing quality checks, prepare content, or transform images into social media promotional graphics. Users would assign tasks, review the agent’s proposed plan, and approve final results, allowing work to continue even when they are away from their computers. Adobe said the feature will first appear in the Firefly AI Assistant, though it did not provide a launch date. The Firefly AI Assistant beta received additional upgrades. It now includes Plan Mode, which lets users review, edit, and approve an agent’s steps before execution, and a Model Selector that allows users to choose a specific AI model or let the system select one automatically. The assistant also gained a new integration with Firefly Boards and expanded customization options for formats, colors, brand guidelines, characters, and products, which can be applied automatically across projects. Adobe’s broader creative agent is also spreading deeper into video tools. In Premiere, the agent can now track masked subjects across frames and apply effects or adjust color and exposure across entire clip sequences. Adobe is adding the agent to Premiere’s mobile editing app as well, enabling conversational video edits while users are away from desktop software. The moves reflect a wider plan outlined by Adobe creativity head David Wadhwani earlier this year, who said Adobe’s creative agent would eventually appear across virtually all of the company’s products. By both building its own agentic features and opening Creative Cloud to third-party AI assistants, Adobe is positioning autonomous AI tools as a central part of the future of creative production.