Adobe puts AI agents and video tools across Photoshop, Premiere and Firefly

Adobe unveiled a long list of updates for Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom and Firefly. Firefly is Adobe's AI hub, where you make images, video and designs from text prompts. Many of the new tools are AI-powered, and some begin rolling out today.

Here are the big themes:

• AI Assistants: helpers you can talk to in plain language to get multi-step jobs done.
• Firefly video and design: a bigger video editor and a new design canvas.
• Outside chatbots: a link that lets other AI apps work inside Adobe software.
• New photo and video tools: relighting, object removal, color grading and more.

The big picture: Adobe wants AI to feel less like a single button and more like a helper that knows your project.

An AI agent is an AI that can carry out a task on its own, instead of only answering a question. Adobe is expanding its Creative Agent across Creative Cloud, its set of creative apps.

AI Assistants are now in beta in Illustrator, Premiere, InDesign, After Effects and Frame.io. They are also in the Photoshop beta app. You type what you want, and the assistant runs a chain of steps.

In Premiere, for example, you can ask the assistant to apply effects to a whole sequence. It can track subjects across frames. It can also adjust color and exposure across several clips.

In real life Say you edited ten clips from a family trip, and some look darker than others. Instead of fixing each one by hand, you tell the assistant to match the exposure across all of them.

Firefly's own assistant is getting better at complex jobs, too. It has a new Plan Mode, in preview. Plan Mode shows you what the agent plans to do, and you approve it before it starts. A Model Selector lets you pick which AI model does the work.

Adobe is also previewing always-on agents. These keep working in the background, even when you step away from the screen.

They can handle repeat jobs such as organizing files, checking image quality when new assets are uploaded, and preparing content for different platforms. Adobe says the idea is that the agent can pick up more context about your work and be there for any action.

There are quick actions, too. These are shortcuts for small jobs, such as removing a background or making a thumbnail for a video.

This is the part with the most buzz. Adobe is building a local MCP link. MCP means Model Context Protocol, an open standard that lets an AI system connect to outside apps and data. Think of it as a universal plug.

"Local" means it runs on your own computer. Adobe says that your agent then works directly in your real project files, so your layers, vectors, bins and sequences stay editable.

The link will connect Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and After Effects to the AI tools you already use, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Adobe already has ChatGPT and Claude integrations that give access to some product functions. This one goes deeper.

Here is an example Adobe gave. You connect Photoshop to ChatGPT and ask it to adapt a whole campaign around new artwork you attach. The chatbot can also add files to a Google Drive folder or update your team on Slack.

What's next: The MCP integrations enter private beta in early 2027. A preview of the third-party connections is available now.

Adobe has not decided how much of its software the MCP link will expose. Deepa Subramaniam, an Adobe vice president, said the company is still working out "where and when and how to draw the line."

She said Adobe has no wish to limit what the MCP endpoint can expose. Adobe will watch how people use it and keep adding more. For now, the endpoints cover Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere.

The catch: MCP is not everyone's favorite. Figma co-founder Dylan Field said last month at an event in India that it is not a perfect standard and benefits the big AI labs more.

Firefly is where Adobe is pushing hardest. The company wants it to be a one-stop AI studio.

• Firefly Video: lets you organize scenes, assemble clips, add captions and generate transitions and B-roll. B-roll is extra footage that fills the gaps between main shots.
• Firefly Design: puts illustration, image editing, animation and 3D tools in a single canvas, with an assistant for making variations of a scene.
• Firefly Graph: a node-based tool, now in public preview. You make small blocks, called nodes, and connect them into a reusable workflow. It started life as Project Graph last year.
• Firefly Builder: a private beta tool for prototyping websites and apps with plain language. It steps into territory held by Figma, the popular design tool.
• Image tools: Relight, Retouch and Edit Object, which change one part of an image without touching the rest.

The video editor is aimed at people between casual apps like CapCut and the full power of Premiere. Adobe wants to lure in people without years of editing know-how.

Photoshop gets Relight. It lets you add, move and resize light sources in a picture without damaging the original. Generative Restyle makes style variations that you adjust with sliders. A Quick Compare slider shows before and after.

The Photoshop beta app adds several more tools:

• Mockups: place a design onto an object or surface with realistic results.
• Camera Angles: explore new viewpoints of a whole image.
• Generative Recompose: fit an image into a new shape while keeping the layout.
• Convert to Text Layers: turn text in a flat image into editable type.
• Timelapse: record and share your whole creative process.
• Remove Ambient Effect Only: remove lens flare, haze or stray reflections but leave the objects.

Premiere gets Color Mode, a new grading tool that starts today. It also gets audio tools: Enhance Audio, Separate Crosstalk and Separate Sound Source. A beta Generative Remove tool deletes things like boom mics and logos right on the timeline.

The Generative Media Tool can make missing b-roll, music or sound effects from the context of your edit. It uses Firefly or models from partners such as Google, Kling, Runway and Luma.

Lightroom adds Glow, which gives photos soft, cinematic light, plus a Blemish Removal tool and a fix for blinking eyes. InDesign adds Co-editing in beta, Flex Layout, and Check Document and Rewrite.

Adobe already offers many third-party models inside its apps. They come from Google, Runway, ElevenLabs, Black Forest Labs, OpenAI, Kling and ByteDance.

It also has Topaz Labs, a company it bought. Topaz is releasing two image models. Wonder 4 does upscaling, denoising, deblurring and sharpening in one step. Image HDR turns a standard picture into an HDR one, with better brightness and detail.

On iPhone, Premiere Mobile gets licensed music through new partnerships with UMG and WMG. Hundreds of thousands of tracks are included, for non-commercial use. Premiere Mobile will also get Quick Cuts, which builds a first cut from your prompt and files.

• Try the betas: AI Assistants are in beta now in several apps, so you can test them on a small project first.
• Wait for MCP: the full link between your chatbot and Adobe apps comes in early 2027.
• Keep control: Plan Mode lets you approve what an agent does before it acts.
• Check your plan: some tools are beta or preview, so what you see may differ by app.