☕️ We talked to the leader behind Adobe's agentic AI strategy

Hey there. Adobe just took a major step toward its vision for agentic creativity. Firefly AI Assistant, powered by Adobe’s creative agent, is now available in public beta inside Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio. Adobe also brought its creative agent into Anthropic’s Claude with the launch of the Adobe for creativity connector. Here’s why it matters.

The pitch: you describe what you want to create in your own words, and Adobe’s creative agent helps seamlessly get you to the outcome. In Firefly, the assistant orchestrates multi-step workflows across Creative Cloud apps, drawing on 60+ pro-grade tools from Photoshop, Premiere, Lightroom, Express, Firefly and more. In Claude, Adobe for creativity also brings 50+ pro-grade tools into the chat surface, so Claude users can create with the best of Adobe, right inside the surface where they already work. 

Less app-switching. More connected creative workflows. And whether you’re creating social content or a seasoned creative professional, you stay in control of the outcome as the creative director.

We sat down with Forest Key, Adobe’s VP of Agentic AI for Creativity & Productivity Business, to get the real story on how AI agents should work inside creative tools. 

In our interview:

– Louis, founder of Techpresso

Techpresso: Adobe has had AI features in its apps for a while. What’s fundamentally different about your creative agent that is powering Firefly AI Assistant?

Forest Key: Many of the AI features we developed before lived inside individual apps, like the AI Assistant in Photoshop or Adobe Express. What’s fundamentally different with Firefly AI Assistant is that you can describe the outcome you want, and the assistant helps orchestrate the workflow across Creative Cloud apps, using the right tools at the right time. The steps that the assistant takes are visible. It also asks questions along the way, so you can refine, redirect or take over at any point. You still make the creative decisions. You define the vision, shape the details and choose what works.

We’re also seeing customers use the assistant for ideation. A rough prompt can turn into a series of ideas that they wouldn’t have reached on their own. Sometimes that ends with a finished project. Sometimes it leads to a clearer brief or an image that gets refined in Photoshop. Both of those are valuable.

Why it matters: Firefly AI Assistant is not just another AI feature inside a creative app. It’s powered by Adobe’s creative agent and introduces a fundamental shift in how creative work is done by saving time and effort while collapsing the distance between what they imagine and what they can create. 

Techpresso: Firefly AI Assistant lives inside Firefly. Now Adobe is also bringing its creative agentic capabilities into Claude. How do those pieces fit together? 

Forest Key: Creative ideas rarely start in one place. They start in a chat window, a rough prompt, a mood board someone on your team built. We want to meet people where they are.

Firefly AI Assistant is where the full experience of our creative agent lives — with access to 60+ pro-grade tools across our creative suite, multi-model generative capabilities, visibility into how your content evolves at every step and more.

Adobe for creativity connector is about giving Claude users access to the best of Adobe inside Claude. It’s a deliberate, high-quality experience to allow Claude users complete meaningful workflows and create high-quality content without leaving the surface where they're already working. There’s a natural progression built in. You can start with Adobe tools inside Claude, then easily move into our creative suite as your work demand greater precision, control and refinement.

With our creative agent, your vision leads. We’re building the platform to help you realize it — everywhere creative work happens. We’ve also recently introduced a productivity agent and you’ll also see a rapid cadence of innovation from us as more capabilities come online in Firefly and our broader partner ecosystem.

Why it matters: Adobe's approach to empowering everyone to create is bigger than one assistant. It's about making pro-grade creative workflows easier to start, control and continue — wherever inspiration strikes.

Techpresso: Walk me through a real workflow. A product photo, three social platforms, what does that look like?

Forest Key: You upload a product photo and ask the assistant to make it stand out. It analyzes the image and orchestrates the edits — enhancing contrast, lifting shadows, adding vibrance, sharpening details — then asks if you want to go further: blur the background, apply a cinematic color grade, adjust the lighting. You stay in the conversation; the assistant handles the execution. Once you're happy with the shot, choose the “Create Social Variations” skill and the assistant crops and optimizes for Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn in one pass, with the right dimensions, right composition for every format. No manual resizing. No starting over.

A personal example: I was building a demo concept around a fictional taco stand from my hometown of Zapallar, Chile — logo, mockups, video clips, the whole thing — before someone pointed out that Chile is famously known for its empanadas. With Firefly AI Assistant, I described the swap and it rebuilt the entire body of work. I didn't start over; I redirected. That's the part that matters: when the cost of changing your mind drops, you explore directions you'd never risk if being wrong meant an afternoon of work.

And if you want hands-on control at any point, move into Photoshop, Express or any other Adobe app.

Why it matters: Adobe is collapsing the distance between idea and execution while keeping creators at the center of the process.

Techpresso: There are other companies that are also offering agentic capabilities for design. Why Adobe?

Forest Key:  Agentic AI is changing how creative work gets done but the quality of the outcome depends entirely on the foundation it's built on. Adobe has spent over 40 years building the tools that creative work actually runs on. When our creative agent orchestrates a workflow, it's drawing on tools purpose-built for creative work across images, video, design and production, with the precision and control that professionals expect. That's not something you replicate with an AI layer on top of a simpler tool.

That depth is what makes our approach to agentic creativity different. Whether you’re working in Firefly AI Assistant or using Adobe for creativity in Claude, you’re not just accessing a single AI tool. You’re accessing a creative system that’s been refined across decades and trusted by the world’s best creative professionals.

Why it matters: Adobe’s advantage is not just the AI. It’s the depth of the creative system the AI can orchestrate.

Techpresso: Big picture, does this change who can create at a professional level?

Forest Key: We believe agentic creativity can expand what's possible, but only if it's built the right way.

It lowers the floor without lowering the ceiling. If you’re newer to working with creative tools, you can now get to much more polished work without having to map every step in the workflow. But if you’re already a creative professional, nothing gets taken away. You still have the same precision, the same control, the same ability to refine every detail. The overhead just gets out of the way, collapsing the distance between what you imagine and what you can create.

And that's the part worth emphasizing: human judgment. Taste. Knowing what will resonate, what feels right, what will move someone. Those aren't things an AI tool can replace. 

What we're building toward is a creative renaissance, where more people can express themselves in more personal ways, where anyone can direct their own creative vision, and where human taste and perspective become more valuable, not less.

Why it matters: Adobe’s agentic vision is about what becomes possible when every person can direct their own creative vision — and Adobe handles the rest.

Watch the full Firefly AI Assistant demo

Firefly AI Assistant is now available in public beta in Adobe Firefly for customers on Creative Cloud Pro and paid Firefly plans (Pro, Pro Plus and Premium)

→ Try Adobe Firefly

Laura, Louis & the ☕️ Techpresso team