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“Digital is transforming every aspect of our lives and how we engage with the world’s information” – and artificial intelligence (AI) is “accelerating this shift and offers the promise and potential to make us even more creative, even more productive, and more successful,” Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, said during a recent Adobe MAX keynote.

“Our lives are becoming almost increasingly digital and we’re turning to creative differentiation to help us stand out as well as make choices,” he told attendees and those viewing the event remotely. “And people are creating more than ever before, flooding every surface, every channel and every medium with their creativity,” he said.

Meanwhile, “as consumers, we expect brands to be more culturally attuned and to interact with us in more meaningful and personalised ways,” he said.

“With greater choice in media, there’s more incredible content everywhere you look,” he noted, pointing as examples to TV shows and movies including The Bear, Succession and Everything Everywhere All at Once, as well as short-form videos that he said are “taking social media by storm.”

We’ve celebrated creative artistry around the world.

“It’s been a year of change and, as we embrace new tools and chart new territories, we’re continually expanding our craft, elevating it and each other,” he said.

As at every Adobe Max, “we look forward to sharing the hundreds of innovations that our teams have delivered,” he went on to say. “We’re incredibly excited about the collaboration and the performance improvements in our flagship applications, as well as new features like enhanced speed … we’re going to show you today.”

Meanwhile, “in partnership with thousands of users across our global community, we unveiled Firefly, which directly integrates into the product you export across Creative, Document,[and Experience Clouds,” he said, adding: “In the six months since launch, you have generated over 3 billion images with Firefly.”

Also, he said, the “all new Adobe Express, completely rewritten on a modern platform, delivers significant advantages, capabilities, collaboration and speed.

“With Adobe Firefly for Enterprise,” meanwhile, he said: “We’re empowering creative and marketing teams to now create and deploy all of this content.

And, “most recently, we introduced Adobe Jets Studio,” an “end-to-end solution integrating Creative Cloud, Express, Firefly, Frame. io, Adobe Experience Manager, as well as Workfront to enable all businesses to supercharge and simplify their creation, all the way to activation and delivery process.”

“We can’t wait to show you all of the incredible latest innovations over the next few months.,” he added.

Concluding, he said: “While there’s apprehension about the impact of AI, I firmly believe that it will never replace human ingenuity. And it’s an incredibly exciting time to tell your story.”

Following him, David Wadhwani, president of digital media at Adobe, went on to demonstrate and explain the power of generative AI, which, he said, has the ability to “make my workflow like 10 times faster.”