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Adobe executives highlighted enhancements to its artificial intelligence (AI) technology capabilities, including its entry into the generative AI arena, on March 21, during the opening keynote of its three-day Adobe Summit, which was held in-person again in Las Vegas for the first time since before the Covid-1 pandemic started.

The company introduced Firefly, a new family of creative generative AI models that it said is first focused on images and text effects.

Adobe has already been a major player in the AI arena, with its Sensei AI and machine learning platform.

Firefly promises to bring “more precision, power, speed and ease directly into Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express workflows where content is created and modified,” according to the company.

“Firefly will be part of a series of new Adobe Sensei generative AI services across Adobe’s clouds,” the company said in a news release.

The company launched a beta version of the first Firefly model focused on commercial use, saying the First Firefly model will enable customers of all experience levels to “generate high quality images and stunning text effects.”

Adobe also plans to make Firefly available via application programming interfaces  (APIs) on several platforms to allow customers to integrate into custom workflows and automations, it said.

Firefly will be integrated directly into the workflows of Adobe Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express, it said.

Adobe is taking a “customer-centric approach” to generative AI, saying it will “support creators in benefitting from their skills and creativity.”

Addressing attendees during the opening keynote, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said: “Infusing AI now into our products is a co-pilot that helps our customers work faster and smarter…. Today’s buzzwords of artificial intelligence and machine learning are both powerful but they also require a really thoughtful approach so that we can amplify and not replace the power of human ingenuity. And these massive trends underscore how more now than ever these rich and dynamic digital experiences are going to shape every aspect of our lives.”

“We’re excited to announce a number of product announcements today in generative AI technologies that we think will redefine both creativity as well as the customer experience,” he went on to say. “It’s an area that we know is evolving very quickly.”

David Wadhwani, president, Digital Media at Adobe, a few minutes later, said: “For those of you who don’t know what generative AI is…. Generative AI allows you to describe what you want in your own words and the computer will effectively visualize and generate content and match those words. In fact, all the imagery that you’ve been seeing behind me … all of that is generated with generative AI.”

The first Firefly model “has been trained on hundreds of millions of stock content from Adobe Stock and open license content and it’s built from the ground up to be deeply integrated into application and content workflows.”