At its MAX event in Miami, Adobe announced a wide range of AI enhancements across its creative applications, including Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign. The company also expanded capabilities in its Firefly creative tool and introduced a Model Context Protocol (MCP) to make Adobe features available to other chatbots such as ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini.
App updates and concrete features
Adobe outlined specific AI additions across multiple products:
- Photoshop: a new relighting feature and sliders for prompt‑based generative styles.
- Premiere: a new professional color grading system and an object removal tool for video.
- Lightroom: a blink‑correction feature and a blemish removal tool.
- Express, Illustrator and InDesign will receive additional AI enhancements as well.
The company also emphasized convenience features like quick background removal and automatic thumbnail generation for videos.
Firefly’s Builder prototype and content tools
Within Firefly, Adobe introduced a new prototyping tool called Builder, currently in private beta, which enables users to create designs and interactive prototypes — encroaching on functionality typically associated with Figma. Firefly also gains a brand‑consistent graph creator and a selective image‑editing tool that changes parts of an image without affecting other objects.
AI‑powered video assembly and an always‑on agent
Adobe announced an AI video tool in Firefly that can assemble a video from clips and other elements such as images and sound effects. The company is making its creative agent more proactive and persistently available so it can gather more context about users’ work and assist during any action.
Third‑party models and Topaz Labs additions
Adobe already offers a variety of third‑party models from providers including Google, Runway, ElevenLabs, Black Forest Labs, OpenAI, Kling and ByteDance. One of Adobe’s newer acquisitions, Topaz Labs, is releasing two image models: Wonder 4 for upscaling and denoising, and ImageHDR for converting standard images into HDR‑like renditions.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Adobe is releasing a local MCP implementation to expose more Creative Cloud features to external chatbots and agents. The company previously offered integrations with ChatGPT and Claude; the MCP opens additional endpoints and capabilities across Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere.
Deepa Subramaniam, Adobe vice president, told TechCrunch that Adobe is still determining exactly which capabilities to expose and will rely on user feedback: “We are still figuring out where and when and how to draw the line. What we’re putting out there is a number of endpoints and capabilities across Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere. We’re just going to sort‑of see how people use it, what they’re trying to do, and keep showing more. We don’t have any need or desire to sort of limit what the MCP endpoint can expose. What we really want to do is to support that creative workflow, how you choose to do it.”
Reactions and context
Earlier, Figma co‑founder Dylan Field said at an event in India that MCP is not a perfect standard and advantages frontier labs. Adobe’s approach for now is to iterate based on how users employ the new endpoints and expand access over time.
Why it matters
Adobe’s announcements indicate a push to embed AI throughout creative workflows — from design and image editing to automated video assembly and external agent access. By opening more functionality via MCP and supporting third‑party models, Adobe aims to accelerate integrations with other systems and agents, which could reshape creative software workflows and automation.
