Adobe's AI assistant turns Photoshop from a passive tool into a creative partner
Adobe MAX 2025 set a clear direction: your apps won't wait for you anymore. They'll suggest, review, and help you ship faster. For working creatives, that means less time clicking through menus and more time on ideas, taste, and results.
What's new right now
- Prompt-based image editing in Firefly with Image Model 5.
- AI upscaling from Topaz Labs inside Photoshop.
- Premiere adds Object Mask for cleaner, faster video edits.
- Customisable Firefly models for brands and artists.
- New AI Assistants in Adobe Express (public beta) and Photoshop (private beta).
How the assistants work
Adobe's AI assistants act like on-demand teammates. You type in plain language and they execute tasks, carry context between steps, and adapt to your style over time.
- Automate tedious work: rename layers, organise asset libraries, apply presets in bulk.
- Ship complete pieces: generate a social ad from brief to export.
- Keep momentum: they remember what you're doing across tasks and projects.
From reactive to proactive
These assistants don't just wait for instructions. Change the style of a banner in Adobe Express, and it may suggest copy tweaks to match. You can even ask it to review a design and recommend improvements.
Control stays with you. It only does what you assign, and you can check every change before anything goes live.
Project Moonlight: one assistant to coordinate them all
Project Moonlight is Adobe's "orchestration" layer that coordinates assistants across apps like Photoshop, Premiere, and Lightroom. Think of it as a conductor syncing a team of specialists.
- Understands your style, projects, and assets across apps.
- Connects to your social accounts to analyse performance and trends.
- Crafts content strategies, brainstorms ideas, and generates posts aligned to your direction.
- Adobe has suggested future connections to third-party apps and other AI chatbots.
Why this matters for working creatives
Software shifts from tool to collaborator. You point the direction; it accelerates the execution. That changes how you allocate time: more concept and curation, less repetitive production.
To keep quality high, treat the assistant like a junior teammate: set standards, define the brief, and review the output. Your taste is the product.
Quick wins to try this week
- Photoshop: batch-rename layers, create style variations, upscale client selects, and prep export sets for platforms.
- Adobe Express: generate a multi-size social campaign from one concept, then ask the assistant for copy variants to match the new style.
- Video (Premiere): use Object Mask to isolate subjects for color or effect passes in fewer steps.
- Brand kits: load style guides and have the assistant enforce color, type, and spacing across outputs.
- Design review: run "review my design" to surface issues in hierarchy, contrast, or consistency-then pick the fixes you agree with.
Guardrails that save you from rework
- Create a short creative intent doc per project (audience, tone, no-go rules, brand references) and feed it to the assistant.
- Approve style once, then ask for variations. Don't iterate copy and layout at the same time.
- Lock critical elements (logos, legal lines) before asking for broad changes.
- Use versioning. Keep the original and branch experiments so you can revert instantly.
Access and availability
- AI Assistant in Adobe Express: public beta now.
- AI Assistant in Photoshop: private beta with waitlist.
- Project Moonlight: private beta with waitlist.
For official updates, see Adobe MAX and Firefly pages: Adobe MAX and Adobe Firefly.
A practical take
Use assistants to clear the grunt work and generate options. Keep your fingerprints on the concept, taste, and final call. That's where your value compounds.
Want structured training on AI workflows for creatives?
If you're building repeatable systems for design, content, or client delivery, these resources can help:
- AI courses by job - pick paths aligned to design, content, or marketing.
- Popular AI tools for generative art - compare tools and stack them into your workflow.
Bottom line: your apps are becoming collaborators. Use them to move faster, but keep your standards high. The best creatives will ship more work without losing their voice.
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