Adobe is betting on generative ai models and tools, even if that means turning away creators who don't like the technology. Artists who refuse to incorporate ai into their work “will not succeed in this new world without using it,” says Alexandru Costin, vice president of generative ai at Adobe.
In an interview with The edgeCostin said he is “not aware” of any plans by Adobe to release products that do not include generative ai for creators who prefer to complete tasks manually or are opposed to how ai is changing the creative industry.
“We have older versions of our products that don't use generic ai, but I wouldn't recommend using them,” Costin said. “Our goal is to make our customers successful and we believe that for them to be successful, they must embrace technology.”
And according to Adobe's President of Digital Media, David Wadhwani, the company is unlikely to accommodate creators who think differently.
“We've always innovated with conviction and we believe in the conviction of what we're doing here,” Wadhwani said, acknowledging that some creatives have strongly criticized Adobe's adoption of generative ai technology. “People will agree with that conviction or not, but we think our approach is the one that frankly wins in the short term, but certainly in the long term.”
Adobe is in a difficult position: while many of its customers, particularly businesses and large creative teams, are hungry for ai features that can increase productivity, many artists openly loathe the technology and fear how it will affect their livelihoods. However, given the demand that already exists, Adobe would be risking its dominant position in the creative software market if it ignored what many customers are asking for. If Adobe doesn't develop these tools, other companies will, and they may not make the effort to do so in a way that respects artists' work.
There are also communities of people online who harbor extreme hatred towards ai, regardless of how it has been applied, and will go to great lengths to condemn it and avoid interacting with it. For example, when a ai-princess-mononoke-remake-trailer-slammed-online/”>New “shot by shot” version of the Princess Mononoke movie trailer made with Kling recently went viral, its creator briefly taking it offline following intense backlash from fans of Hayao Miyazaki's original classic who felt the video was disrespectful or downright ugly.
But generative ai features like those powered by Adobe's Firefly models are the most adopted products Adobe has ever released, according to Wadhwani, which is all the sign the company needs to continue down the same path. There are many generative ai models already competing with Adobe's Firefly line, both from large companies like OpenAI and Google and smaller niche startups that are trying to make their own place in the industry. And in many cases, Adobe is the one playing catch-up. The upcoming “Project Concept” collaborative canvas, which also includes text-to-image conversion tools and an ai remix feature, is similar to existing apps like FigJam from Figma and ai-art-and-design-app”>Kaiber Super StudioFor example.
Adobe says it aims to implement ai in a way that gives artists more time to focus on being creative rather than replacing them entirely, such as making tools more efficient and eliminating tedious tasks like resizing or masking objects. Basically, the company is trying to appeal to both parties by giving its ai tools very specific purposes within its Creative Cloud applications, rather than presenting them as a means to replace all aspects of content creation.
“If you just rely on ai for all of this, you're going to end up with a lot more content that looks like the same content everyone else is creating.”
“We believe that the demand for content is insatiable. We also believe that human creativity will be a key part of it,” Wadhwani said. “If you just rely on ai for all of this, you're going to end up with a lot more content that looks like the same content everyone else is creating.”
What we will likely see is a greater divide between smaller artists and the creative industry as a whole. Demand for all types of content, from images and advertising texts to television shows and other media we consume, is growing rapidly. A Adobe Survey Reports which doubled between 2021 and 2023, and could increase up to 2,000 percent by 2025, which is pushing companies to find new ways to increase production affordably.
Generative ai tools, many of which promise to automate repetitive or technically challenging tasks, are a very attractive solution to meet those demands. But many people still value the work that goes into manual creative processes, and I don't see that going away completely.
“I think there will be a thirst for artists who make things by hand,” Wadhwani said. “In the last decade I can take a photograph and put it through a process that makes it look like a painting, but I'm not going to value that 'painting' the same way I would an artist who actually took the time to make it. a real painting.”
However, there is no doubt that generative ai is changing the creative landscape. Adobe says the technology ai-will-spur-more-hiring-and-ingenuity-per-person-adobe-scott-belsky/”>will create new jobsBut those jobs will be different, and some specialized roles may disappear entirely. It's also hard to avoid ai art in general these days: platforms like Etsy that were created for creators to sell handmade products. technology/archive/2023/06/ai-chatgpt-side-hustle/674415/”>now they're inundated with itand It's harder for artists to find exposure online. now they have to compete with ai-generated-images-have-become-the-latest-form-of-social-media-spam-226903″>ai Content Farms.
Adobe is the dominant provider of creative design software, and few other companies offer a similarly connected ecosystem of products. That makes it difficult for customers to abandon ship if they don't agree with the direction it's taking, even if is trying to be thoughtful about how generative ai is being implemented. But if its support for ai ruffles enough feathers, then that could give way to new competitors to appease the users Adobe is leaving behind.
And if the backlash presented by online creators is any indication, that's a sizable market that Adobe is at risk of losing. It seems Adobe simply thinks the opportunity presented by ai adopters is even greater.
