AI agents are an opportunity to rethink creativity: Adobe’s Govind Balakrishnan

Adobe Express is adding new functionality, as it competes with Canva and a number of AI tools that are proficient at replicating some of Express’ functionality

While the generative artificial intelligence (AI) battles continue in earnest, headlined by the likes of OpenAI, Google and others with the definitive leaps they make with new models, there is one focused AI product that continues to deliver within a focused set of apps. Adobe’s Firefly models, which can be further segregated depending on images, vectors or videos, have clocked more than 22 billion asset generations. The new Image Model 4 and Image Model 4 Ultra will underline Adobe’s AI efforts across apps including Express and Photoshop. At this year’s Adobe Max London conference, the company has detailed plans for general availability of Firefly Video models addition of non-Adobe models (GPT image generation, Google Imagen 3 and Veo 2, Flux) as choice for creators, an upcoming Firefly app for smartphones, and significant upgrades across Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere Pro and InDesign.

The versatile Adobe Express platform is adding significant new functionality too. (Official photo)

The versatile Adobe Express platform is adding significant new functionality too, as it competes with the likes of Canva as well as a number of AI-based tools that have become proficient at replicating some of Express’ functionality. The new additions add video generation, enhancing speech to remove background noise, animation for objects in static designs and an AI clip maker that creates shorter duration clips from a larger video, optimised for social media sharing. Adobe is taking forward steps with AI Agents, across Photoshop and Premiere Pro.

On the sidelines, Govind Balakrishnan, senior vice president for Express Product Group & Digital Media Services at Adobe, spoke with HT from London, and detailed India’s importance as a market for Adobe Express, how important it is to leverage Firefly amidst stiffer competition, if Adobe Express’ perceived value proposition has changed with time and the excitement around AI Agents (Adobe has detailed plans to bring agentic AI to Express). Edited excerpts.

Adobe Express has come a long way since the big revamp in 2021. Did Adobe, at that time, envision such a thick AI layer to envelope Express over time, and is Adobe Express today exactly as you’d thought of it then?

The benefit of starting with a complete free platform is that we have an ability to think holistically about where we think the product should go, and we obviously have the advantage that we were beginning to see what was happening in the industry around us, including advancements that were happening in AI and more. Importantly, even the advancements happening in generative AI. One of the key tenets that we wanted to hold true to was that we would provide recommendations, that is we would not put the burden entirely on users to figure out what to do and when to do it. From the beginning, we architected the product in a way that we could provide font recommendations. We give our users access to more than 30, 000 fonts now, but that doesn’t help if you can’t figure out how to pick the right one. Look at the content, context, and we make some recommendations. Similarly, we are also making colour, stock assets and other recommendations. Users don’t have to go searching for these pieces of content.

Then along came generative AI. We were still in the middle of building the product when generative AI started taking off as much as it did. Adobe has deep experience in generative AI base, and how we got Firefly to where it is today. But since we were building the product, we didn’t have to bolt it all as an afterthought. We have actually seamlessly and contextually integrated it with the workflows in the journey. While you’re creating, just add something as simple as video generation, that we just did. Now, it’s not something you start with. You actually start with your intent. You can start with video generation if you choose to, but the more natural way is, you’re now creating a Instagram reel for instance and as part of that, you’re putting some clips together. Now, you need a five second clip that is a filler potentially? So, in that workflow, in that context, we give you the ability to generate video. It’s that integration seamless integration as part of your workplace that has been a big advantage for us.

Did we expect the product to be what it is today? I would say, not necessarily. I take pride in is the fact that the product has evolved based on what we are seeing and how we’re seeing our customers use the product. So, rather than us sort of saying, you know, this is exactly what the product should be, and this is how all the workflows and experiences should be, we have chosen to morph, adjust and build the product based on what we hear from our community and our users

How pivotal has Firefly been to Express, as it has been to the likes of Photoshop and Premiere Pro for instance, and does that need to be Adobe’s AI trump card considering the AI ecosystem is creating focused alternative after alternative at a rapid pace?

I would say yes, and for a few reasons. We have essentially created the creative category, and we have more experience and expertise in the creative space than any other company in the world. Our researchers have been hard at work for many years, making sure they build the models that are best in class. There will be pointed solutions that will come and obviously challenge us, which is great. But if you look at it holistically, I would say that our ability to deliver the best results is real and is something that we are investing in and stay ahead of everyone else.

What then differentiates our Firefly models is that what we have built is safe for commercial use. We have trained these models with data that we have access to and essentially what we have done is, regardless of whether you’re a student, a solo planner or someone in a business, we have given you the ability to leverage generative AI capabilities and use it for your creative work without being concerned about your IP infringement of any kind. That’s the other one that we have held through to.

The third piece to this is that because we have built the tools that work on content. We have been able to bridge those solutions together and make those available through these seamless, contextually relevant touch points. The integration works better unlike a point solution that can be used to generate a stunning image. The questions, what do you do with that image? The image is not an end to itself, and you generally have to do something with the image. Perhaps put it into a poster, into a birthday card, or a social media campaign. We can now make all of that available to one single tool that gets you to start from an intent, use generative AI wherever your design, and then take it out with the flexibility across social media to banners to flyers. Users now have an end-to-end solution that only Adobe can provide right now. It’s a matter of plugging these pieces together and obviously continuing to make sure we deliver the highest quality delivered safely.

Do the contours of perceived value proposition for Adobe Express change with time, and surely that ties in with what the consumer and business audiences are looking for?

For consumers, in general, their primary goal is to get started with an intent as soon as possible. We give them the ability to either start with a template, their own content, or generate their own images or videos. You can essentially enter a prompt to generate a design, modify it and get to desired outcomes. As part of that journey, users are able to use our generative AI in a meaningful way. When I say generated, it relates to image generation, video generation, text effects and an ability to create captions for social content.

With Enterprises, we are seeing a significant traction, and adoption, for generative AI in particular. That is given the quality of what’s created or generated, but more interestingly, also because whatever we generate for commercial use is proving to be something that a large number of enterprises care about and value. The fact that it’s safe for commercial use, and it’s the confidence that there is no IP infringement. Those are the two things that go hand in hand as it plays to the value proposition that we are offering with generative AI to enterprise customers.

AI agents are now very much part of the conversation for businesses, and perhaps in due course, for consumers too. What is Adobe’s vision for agentic AI in Adobe Express and what shall form the core of this evolution?

This is an area once again that I get very excited about and often tell my team in the context of the advancements that we are seeing, and the tools that we have in our toolbox, are AI agents, now really a path to, or a way to interact with these applications. The opportunity that we have is to essentially reimagine and rethink creativity. This next wave, with the capabilities that are available and with the direction that we are headed in, we’re seeing just the tip of where we want to go. As we deliver on that vision, we think a user will now have the ability to essentially interact with the application, purely using prompt based interaction models. It can be conversational or input text based and a user will no longer have to take the time and energy to essentially learn a tool like Adobe Express to get work done.

Think of it as the ability to bring what’s in your mind’s eye, to a digital service. No need to learn a tool to do that. What makes us even more magical though is that even as a user goes through that process, is the granular control to get to your desired outcome. The tools that we have in a product like Adobe Express are still available and a user can very seamlessly go from interacting using prompts to actually going into the tool and making the tweaks and adjustments manually. Users are not giving up on control by adopting, but enhancing an ability to start using these interfaces and capabilities to then get to the desired outcome as well as possible.

Please tell us about India as a market for Adobe Express. What are users here demanding, and does that feedback and research help build for the rest of the world?

India is one of the most unique markets in the world, through diversity and its dynamic nature. I strongly believe that it is one of our biggest growth areas as we look ahead, not just for Adobe Express, but more holistically for Adobe. Given how creative the Indian population is, India presents a huge opportunity. One of our biggest challenges previously was that we did not have the tools and applications that could lower the barrier to entry. To address the broad base of users in India, Adobe Express is bringing all these capabilities together and we believe we have lowered the barrier to entry sufficiently enough for us to have lots of viable and exciting offerings for India.

We are going to invest heavily, and even based on investments and the advancements we have made, we are seeing a 3x increase in the number of Adobe Express users in India over the past 12 months. We expect that number to continue to grow. Our focus is on investing in making sure that we have the right content for the Indian market, be it templates, stock images, or forms. We are doing everything we can to increase the breadth of content that we have available for users in India.

In parallel, we are also trying to build solutions such as an AI assistant and agent solutions that don’t necessarily rely on templates and content — a user simply explains what they want to do, and generate the right content. We will also add support for additional languages. We recently added a few additional languages in terms of localisation of the UI itself, but beyond that, we are making it so that users can translate content into as many as 15 Indian languages.

Adobe is also partnering with educational institutions and the education industry at large, the Ministry of Education and we have a number of compelling partnerships in the works. There is a big opportunity in education for kids and students in schools and educational institutions to use Express for their learning and creative work. If we put it all together, it is a big opportunity for us in India. It is a priority and we intend to stay focused.