Ahead of Adobe MAX 2026: how Creative Agent and Firefly are changing creative work
Adobe's annual creativity conference MAX takes place in Miami Beach on 10 to 12 November 2026. Heading into it, the steps the company took this year give clear hints about how design teams will work next.
Creative Agent: describe the outcome, the agent runs the steps
On 18 June 2026 Adobe announced it was expanding Creative Agent across its apps. The agent orchestrates multi-step workflows from a described outcome:
- Photoshop: Swapping backgrounds, resizing for multiple platforms, organising layers.
- Illustrator: Batch-generating versioned files from a spreadsheet and print pre-flight checks.
- InDesign: Applying brand updates across layouts.
- Premiere: Sorting and renaming clips and assembling a first edit.
It is in public beta in Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Frame.io, and private beta in After Effects. Firefly gained brand kit creation and short product videos from photos.
What the MAX programme says
Per Creative Bloq's analysis, 25 of 208 sessions are AI-focused, but the language is notably cautious: preserving human craft is emphasised, and one session is titled "Why AI Is Not Our Creative Titanic." The programme also leans towards large agencies and enterprise buyers. Aaron Draplin's logo design session and an AI-free Illustrator lab are on the bill.
Takeaway for designers
The jobs agents take over are clear: resizing, versioning, pre-flight, first cuts. In other words, repetitive production. What remains and grows in value is deciding: which idea, which tone, which visual language. An agent only works as well as the brand rules it is given.
If you want to talk about how your brand should adapt to these shifts, request a quote.
Source: Adobe Newsroom, 18 June 2026
Source: Creative Bloq
