Adobe execs say AI speeds up work but humans still bring creative quality

What Adobe executives said

Adobe has used its annual Max conference to argue that artificial intelligence is not pushing creative professionals aside. In a media question-and-answer session at the event, product marketing vice president Deepa Subramaniam and creative vice president Resh Sidhu said human judgement is becoming more important as AI tools spread, according to TechRadar.

The company's position is that AI lets far more people produce polished-looking content, but it just as easily lets them produce poor content. The executives therefore want attention shifted from output volume to taste, craft and decision-making, qualities they say only people supply.

Speed is not a strategy

The clearest line of the session came from Sidhu, who told attendees that producing options quickly is a capability rather than a creative plan. She pointed out that a person can generate a thousand variations of a concept with AI and still need someone to judge which one is worth pursuing.

This thinking sits behind two themes Adobe promoted at this year's sessions: trust and precision. The company also framed its tools as platforms for developing ideas, not just for churning out finished work. Both executives concluded that making more content does not mean making better work, and they described AI as something that enables people rather than replaces them.

More creators, more ideas

Adobe expects its AI tools to widen who can participate in creative work. Subramaniam pointed to the steep learning curve of Adobe's flagship applications, noting that in the past a person could master Photoshop and still find it hard to work in After Effects without lengthy training or help from a specialist colleague. AI features lower barriers like these, so a writer could visualise a concept without learning new software or waiting for support.

The company believes this broader participation benefits businesses. With more non-designers able to contribute, companies receive a wider pool of ideas and, in Adobe's view, find it easier to separate strong work from mediocre work.

Why expertise still matters

Early fears that generative AI would make designers redundant have so far proved, in Adobe's telling, unfounded. The executives argued the opposite is happening: as technical barriers fall, expertise stands out more as a differentiator between creators, because anyone can generate options but few can judge them well.

For readers working in creative fields, the message is that AI is changing the shape of the job rather than removing it. Adobe, whose business depends on creative software subscriptions, has a clear commercial interest in this framing, and the remarks come from a company event rather than independent research. Still, the underlying claim matches a wider industry debate about where human value sits in an AI-driven workflow.