Adobe tests Firefly AI assistant across apps, Claude

Adobe has started public testing of an AI assistant in Firefly and is building a lighter version for third-party chatbots, beginning with Anthropic’s Claude.

The move comes as chatbots take on more design tasks, with the tool able to complete multistep workflows across several Adobe apps.

The assistant draws on Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Express, and Premiere, letting users perform actions that would otherwise require moving between programs.

The move broadens Adobe’s AI push beyond earlier integrations with ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, which centered on features from individual apps such as Acrobat or Photoshop.

Adobe also said it plans to bring similar agentic assistants to more of its apps.

🔗 Source: Axios

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Adobe widens its agentic AI push as chatbots handle more design work

The launch lands amid business strain. Adobe said in March 2026 that its CEO would step down after 18 years, after investor frustration grew in part over how the company was turning AI into revenue.
Adobe shares were down nearly 23% for the year at that point, as investors worried that agentic AI systems able to finish multistep work could weaken per-seat software pricing. Some called that risk a “SaaSpocalypse,” shorthand for a disruption to the software-as-a-service model.
Pressure also came from Canva, which introduced its next-generation agentic platform, Canva 2.0, the same day Adobe unveiled Firefly AI Assistant 1.
The assistant lets people describe the result in a conversational interface instead of mastering app-specific workflows or repeating tool actions 2.

Creative work is moving from tool operation to AI direction

Adobe and Canva are recasting creative professionals as supervisors who guide AI-generated work and review the output, instead of handling every tool by hand 3.
That change is pushing Adobe toward a different business model, with more AI features sold through usage-based “AI credits” 4.
Adobe plans to connect the assistant with platforms such as Anthropic‘s Claude, a chatbot made by AI company Anthropic. The goal is to keep its creative tools useful if chatbots become the main interface for design or editing work 4.
Value is moving toward a coordination layer that manages creative work across apps and chatbots 4.