Adobe Releases Standalone App For Generating AI Videos, Images

Adobe on Tuesday released a standalone Firefly mobile application for Android and iOS in an attempt to put a larger spotlight on its artificial intelligence-powered image generation and editing tools.

The new app offers capabilities such as generative fill, generative expand, text to image, text to video, and image to video. The generative fill tool makes it easy to remove distracting elements of a photo — or add something to the image that wasn’t originally present. Generative expand uses AI to stretch a photo to better fit various aspect ratios, which can be useful for social media posts.

The text-based creation flow, meanwhile, resembles similar offerings from OpenAI Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, and Meta Platforms Inc. Generated videos are five seconds in length.

The Firefly app arrives at a moment when investors are watching closely to see if traditional software leaders like Adobe can hold their own against newer companies, whose tools were designed from the beginning with artificial intelligence at the forefront. Design applications like those from Canva Inc. and image- and video-creation tools from startups like Runway AI Inc. and Midjourney Inc. have gained steam while Adobe has gone the route of adding AI to its existing products, including Photoshop.

Adobe’s recent efforts to adapt to the age of AI haven’t impressed investors, who have sent the stock down almost 14% so far this year. The shares fell as much as 4.5% on Tuesday, trailing the wider market.

The functions offered in the new app were already available as part of Adobe’s creative software suite that includes Photoshop and Lightroom, but a dedicated Firefly application puts them front and center and lets consumers experiment with the AI tools through a more streamlined interface.

For Adobe, it’s a more focused showcase of what the company’s latest AI models are capable of. Adobe’s models are used by default, but creators can opt to use models from OpenAI or Google for text-to-image, text-to-video and image-to-video projects.

The Firefly app is free to download but Adobe requires credits for generating content. Those without an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription can sign up for a new $4.99-per-month plan for additional credits and to unlock the app’s “premium” features, an Adobe spokesperson told Bloomberg News.

Content generated with the Firefly app is synced to a user’s Creative Cloud account, allowing editing to be continued on a computer.