Adobe’s AI business runs from creative tools to customer campaigns

Adobe sells software for making images, video, designs and documents, alongside systems for managing marketing. Its AI business connects those activities: a customer can create an asset, revise it in an editing application, use it in a campaign and examine the campaign’s results. The company sells several parts of that process, from subscriptions to enterprise services.[1]

That breadth explains why Firefly is both a family of Adobe models and a place where customers can use models from other developers. Adobe’s partner-model documentation says users choose between Adobe and partner models within supported features. The commercial relationship can stay with Adobe even when another company supplies the generator.[3]

The software business underneath the AI

Subscriptions supplied approximately 97.4% of that quarterly total, calculated from the filing. Adobe is adding AI to an established recurring software business while building additional ways to sell generation and production.[1]

The portfolio also reaches people working with documents: Acrobat Studio combines Acrobat, Express and AI agents. Adobe groups Acrobat and Express under Business Professionals & Consumers, while its creative applications and customer-experience offerings serve Creative & Marketing Professionals.[1]

A subscription and a generation allowance do different jobs

Adobe’s current credit rules separate standard generation from premium features such as video and partner models. Creative Cloud Pro and qualifying Firefly plans include unlimited standard generations, but standard operations inside Firefly Graph remain metered. Monthly credits reset rather than accumulate. The application, feature and plan therefore all affect how much a creative session consumes.[2]

For example, Adobe lists Firefly Generate Video at 1080p and 24 frames per second at 100 credits per second. A five-second generation uses 500 credits at that rate; six such attempts use 3,000. This is original arithmetic from the rate card, not a claim that six attempts will produce an approved clip. Choosing the final take is part of the work.[2]

Using a partner model also changes the data route. Adobe says it sends the prompt and relevant reference images or video needed for generation, and contractually requires partners not to use that content to train their models. A user can access these models through an eligible Adobe account without separately subscribing to the provider.[3]

The enterprise product includes the production process

GenStudio for Performance Marketing shows what Adobe adds around generation. An organisation supplies brand guidelines, product information and audience descriptions. It loads templates and approved assets so people can create campaign material within the intended visual and editorial boundaries. Connecting paid-media accounts brings campaign data back into Insights for analysis. These are documented workflow capabilities, not evidence that every generated advertisement performs better.[4]

One revealing detail sits in the publishing instructions. After every designated approver approves a draft, a content editor publishes it to the internal Content collection with metadata. That makes the approved asset available to other GenStudio users and retains approval history. In this workflow, publishing an approved asset means making it available inside the production system; advertising distribution is a further task.[5]

The person using Adobe’s AI may be shopping for a bottle

Gatorade provides a concrete example. Its October 2024 launch embedded Firefly Services in a bottle customiser on its own website. Adobe’s account describes a collection of 200,000 pre-generated assets, alongside custom prompts. Gatorade’s designers supplied structure and style references drawn from its existing visual identity, giving shoppers room to personalise within an established brand.[6]

The AI Custom Water Bottle remains on Gatorade’s public storefront as checked on 12 October 2026. The launch case shows Adobe supplying generation behind a brand’s shopping experience. The listing confirms an offered product; we have not tested today’s customiser or ordered a bottle.[6][7]

Foundry takes the enterprise relationship further. Adobe describes working directly with a business to tailor models using its proprietary catalogue, with researchers and engineers helping develop the workflow. It also supplies tools for testing outputs and managing model access. This is a service for an organisation building a reusable production capability.[8]

Contractual cover depends on the route to the finished asset

Adobe’s Firefly product description ties IP indemnification to a qualifying agreement, eligible features and surfaces, and a defined export event. In an Express project, for example, the person exporting performs that event—even if someone else generated the image. The relevant user must have the qualifying entitlement. Merely placing generated content on a canvas is insufficient under that definition.[9]

Partner models have a separate route. Adobe’s May 2026 product description lists eligible generally available Google and OpenAI image and video models under Creative Partner Model Supplemental Coverage when the agreement incorporates it. Preview and similar pre-release models are excluded. It would therefore be inaccurate to treat every partner model as either automatically covered or automatically outside all Adobe cover.[10]

The supplemental terms also distinguish unmodified output and set exceptions, including combinations with other material. This makes the actual production path commercially significant: which model generated the asset, who exported it and how it was subsequently used can affect the applicable cover.[11]

For a customer, the choice is consequently about the work they want to complete. A solo creator may need flexible editing and enough generation capacity. A brand may need reusable assets, controlled approval, a tailored model or generation embedded in its storefront. Adobe’s opportunity is to make those different stages useful together, with the commercial terms matching the way the customer actually produces content.

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