Adobe launches AI assistants for Express and Photoshop (techcrunch.com)

Adobe rolled out AI assistants across Creative Cloud, debuting a new prompt-first "assistant mode" in Express and a sidebar assistant for Photoshop (closed beta). In Express, users can flip into an AI prompt mode to generate images and full designs with text, then switch back to the app’s traditional editing tools—an approach Adobe says aims to be both accessible and controllable for students and professionals. The Photoshop assistant lives in the sidebar and is built to understand layers, automate object selection and mask creation, and handle repetitive tasks such as background removal or color changes. The release signals Adobe moving from single-tool automation to a more modular, model-agnostic workflow: Photoshop’s generative fill can now call third‑party models (e.g., Google’s Gemini 2.5 flash and Black Forest Labs’ FLUX.1 Kontext), Premiere Pro gains an AI object mask for video, and Adobe is testing “Project Moonlight” to coordinate assistants across tools and link to creators’ social channels. The company is also experimenting with connecting Express to ChatGPT via OpenAI’s app integrations API. For the AI/ML community this highlights trends toward composable model routing, multi-tool orchestration, and tighter integrations between foundation models and creative pipelines—raising opportunities for faster, customizable creative workflows and new product-integration challenges (model governance, provenance, and UX for mixed manual/AI modes).