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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1488864
Part 1: Noteworthy Keynotes Like most opening keynote’s, Adobe’s laid out where the company is, where it’s heading and, everyone’s favorite: product announcements. Historically, with Adobe, these presentations are also a good indication of the direction of its customers’ industries as well and where the opportunities for creatives will be. Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayen introduced the conference theme of “Creativity for All,” the company’s efforts to get its tools into the hands of everyone who has something to say that people need to hear. Adobe Express, its social media Swiss army knife for graphics and video is now free for all non-profits and educators, giving them access to the persuasive power now popular with corporate. More importantly, it will let people that may not have otherwise had the opportunity, discover potentially life-changing talents that would have gone undiscovered. Narayen was followed by Adobe’s President of Digital Media, David Wadhwani to introduce what may be one of the most noteworthy directions Adobe will be taking, generative artificial intelligence (GAI). With the knowledge already gained by years of its Sensei AI initiatives, Adobe is positioned to become a major player and this new and sometimes controversial new field. Originally known as “synthetic media,” the idea behind GAI is to create media, graphics, video, music, and even text, using AI and a series of text prompts to describe what youwant. Though it is a field that hasn’t been getting a lot of attention, it’s been progressing with startling speed. The cover illustration for one of last June’s issues of The Economist was created in this way to highlight a story on “AI’s New Frontier.” Wadhwani’s talk both encouraged and reassured the audience that Adobe’s efforts were to “enhance human creativity, not replace it.” Though not currently present in production Adobe products, you can try some of them out in the newest versions of Photoshop and Express. Both at the keynote and in their blog posts on the topic, Adobe stressed that it will be maintaining a high level of transparency and constantly evaluating the impact and ethics of its use of the new technology. Collaboration Goes Multi-player As the new product features were unveiled, it became clear that Adobe’s acquisition of the Frame.io tools will be serving as more of an extension of Adobe’s collaboration efforts than a replacement. Virtually every product, sported some significant improvement in this realm. For example, the Share for Review feature that lets approved collaborators mark up a document online