Adobe intros new GenAI tools and apps for marketers

New GenAI tools

GenStudio is a new generative AI application that helps brands create content, access brand-approved assets and measure campaign performance.

Adobe Experience Platform AI Assistant helps brands boost team productivity. The platform's conversational interface allows users to ask questions. It simulates users' tasks and generates new audiences within Adobe Experience Cloud applications.

With Adobe Firefly services, Adobe provides brands with 20 generative and creative cloud APIs. The APIs allow teams to generate new content and make different edits, such as replacing objects and backgrounds. They can then assemble the content into a finished asset for delivery.

Custom Models allow enterprises to train and customize their versions of Firefly models and share them among marketing and creative teams.

Accenture plans to integrate Adobe Firefly Custom Models into marketing services offered by Accenture Song.

Adobe also revealed that Firefly users now have a new level of control with Structure Reference. This feature allows users to use the structure of an existing image to generate a new image.

Helping the content supply chain

Taken together, all these tools help enterprises and creators with their "content supply chain."

The GenAI tools and applications are designed for users who need to generate thousands of creative assets every month, and who want to do so in a productive and time-efficient way.

What Adobe is promising here is to squeeze down the production and distribution of that creative so that it's tailored for the right use case.

"What Adobe is promising here is to squeeze down the production and distribution of that creative [asset] so that it's tailored for the right use case," Gartner analyst Benjamin Bloom said.

The new AI tools improve efficiency, as well. For example, a marketer doesn't have to wait for a designer to come back with an asset; they can use the AI tool to create different versions of work tailored to specific audience segments.

With GenStudio, Adobe is also trying to centralize the ability to create new versions or variants and distribute them to different parts of the Adobe ecosystem.

The vendor is helping enterprises fix the bottlenecks within their content process, said Forrester Research analyst Lisa Gately. This might mean finding the point of value within content and identifying new ways to use and reuse content.

"GenStudio is connecting a lot of things," she said.

New applications within Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) also help marketers and creatives deal with some of the bottlenecks involved in content creation.

The content management system, used by brands to create high-performance pages across the web, mobile and apps, now includes new AEM Sites variant generation, an application that allows brands to take a marketing asset and create different variations for different audiences.

The company also added Adobe Content Analytics, an application that helps brands understand how AI-generated content is performing.

The application can show brands what part of their asset stands out to audiences, whether color, objects and styles, according to Adobe.

With AEM, Adobe has reduced the time teams spend trying to coordinate with other members when a change needs to be made to content, Bloom said. Instead, changes can be made right within AEM.

"There's a big efficiency gain that you expect from being able to do this work in Experience Manager without having to worry that you're going to create assets that don't look right," Bloom said.

The vendor is also trying to centralize all the variants and distribute content to different parts of the Adobe ecosystem, making sure that is a measurable activity for marketing and customer experience, he added.

Ready to use

Adobe's new AI products stand out from others, including Salesforce or HubSpot, in that their products are already safe for enterprises to use, said Liz Miller, an analyst with Constellation Research.

"This isn't a play with it for six months and then we'll figure it out," Miller said. "They've figured it out."

The fact that many of Adobe's tools are generally available is helpful for enterprises hesitant to use new digital experience tools for fear that they are not security or privacy-ready, Miller added.

"That's what people are looking for," she said. "Can I use this confidently tomorrow? There are a lot of [products] out there where you can use it; it's the word confidently that is often missing."

One way Adobe has proven that enterprises can trust its AI is with Firefly.

Firefly is trained on content within Adobe Stock, instead of what's widely available on the web. This gives enterprises the confidence that by using Firefly, they won't run into any licensing issues.

Thus, enterprises that need to understand how content was created and the different authenticity initiatives behind what is created will be more inclined to use Adobe, Miller said.

"Adobe has taken a really smart path that's intentionally built for business use," she said.

The products offered by the vendor are also compelling for enterprises looking to stay in the Adobe ecosystem.

Many enterprises are deciding whether to source GenAI applications from a new vendor or from vendors with which they already have relationships.

"Many buyers are going to look for the best solution they can find, as opposed to waiting for their existing vendors to develop them," Bloom said.

While Adobe produces interesting tools for enterprise users, they often fail to provide products that are cost-effective for SMBs or midtier businesses.

Another limitation is that many enterprises are unsure what part of the Adobe portfolio to use first, Miller added.

"People get confused by the expansiveness of the portfolio: What do I pick? What do I pick first?" Miller continued.

She added that this is likely why Adobe is honing its focus and creating simplified and not simplistic products.

Esther Ajao is a TechTarget Editorial news writer and podcast host covering artificial intelligence software and systems.