Hello Reader!

I spent the past few days at Adobe MAX in Miami Beach, where Adobe made some HUGE announcements about agentic AI and demonstrated how it’s transforming the creative world.

I saw Adobe’s new tech in action, sat down with Adobe executives, and spent a lot of time thinking about what these massive innovations mean for people who make a living creating things (like you and I).

TBH, I walked away more excited about the future of creative work, and it was largely due to one thing. In all the sessions that I saw and the interviews I led, Adobe made a big deal out of keeping humans at the center of creative work (and positioned AI as a way to help creatives bring their ideas to life).

So, what did Adobe announce? And what does it mean for creatives and marketers?

There was a LOT, so I'll give you the short version. At MAX, Adobe announced new agentic AI capabilities across its creative and enterprise marketing products. Here are a few highlights:

• CX Enterprise Coworker: Adobe is bringing its AI coworker into GenStudio to help coordinate tasks across campaign planning, content creation, and distribution. Think campaign briefs, audience research, and personalized content variations.
• Adobe Brand Intelligence: New capabilities help AI agents understand a company's brand identity, including the unwritten rules and creative decisions that guide how a brand looks and sounds.
• Firefly Graph for enterprise: New features will help teams build repeatable creative workflows, making it easier to produce and adapt content across projects. (I was especially excited about this because I can finally bring some of my smaller creative ideas to life!)
• 3D Digital Twins: Adobe is expanding its technology for creating digital replicas of products, allowing teams to change settings, materials, lighting, and even generate video animations.

Agentic AI is going to change how we work

Like most marketers, I've spent the past couple of years experimenting with AI and finding ways to incorporate it into my work. But after seeing what agentic AI can do at Adobe MAX, we're looking at a much bigger transformation in how creative and marketing work gets done.

Think about it this way: Instead of asking ChatGPT to help with one task at a time, you can have AI agents work across the applications you already use, completing multiple steps in a project. For example, Adobe's CX Enterprise Coworker can help marketers develop a campaign brief, evaluate target audiences, and create personalized content variations for different platforms, all through a conversational interface. That's a pretty big change in how we plan, create, and distribute content.

During my interview with Marissa Dacay, Adobe's Global Vice President of Enterprise Marketing, she explained that agentic AI is creating an opportunity to rethink how marketing teams operate. Instead of adding AI to existing processes to complete tasks faster, companies can reconsider entire workflows, eliminate unnecessary steps, and rethink how responsibilities are divided between people and technology. It's an opportunity to fundamentally change how marketing work gets done.

Adobe is already using AI throughout its own marketing organization. Dacay also shared that her team has seen a 7x increase in engagement just by using AI to create more specific messaging for different B2B audiences. She didn't specify the exact engagement metric, but the example was fascinating. It shows how much more agentic AI can take on, giving teams the capacity to reach audiences they previously didn't have the resources to serve.

Agentic AI is here to stay, and it's expanding what we can create, how much we can accomplish, and the audiences we can reach. But as these tools become more capable, human creativity, judgment, and original ideas will become even more important. The people who know how to bring those strengths together with AI will have some exciting opportunities ahead.

What impressed me most was the focus on humans

One thing I appreciated about Adobe MAX (which I was not expecting, honestly) was how much emphasis they placed on human creativity and the role AI can play in helping people bring their creative ideas to life.

For example, I'm a writer, editor, and B2B content creator. I've spent more than 15 years developing my writing skills, and I'm confident in my ability to create great written content. But I am NOT confident in my design or video editing skills.

Yet my job requires me to create visual content all the time. I need graphics for articles, images for newsletters, and videos for social media. I have plenty of creative ideas, but I don't always have the technical skills to bring them to life.

After seeing Adobe's Firefly tools and agentic AI announcements, some of those smaller creative projects feel accessible to me for the first time. I can see how these tools could help me turn ideas into visuals and videos without spending years learning how to operate every feature of professional design software.

DON’T GET ME WRONG: I'd absolutely still hire a professional designer for a big project or when creative taste is my priority. Designers bring aesthetic judgment, technical expertise, and a creative eye that I deeply respect. I know the difference between having an idea for a design and having the skills to execute it beautifully.

But I am excited to be able to execute little creative tasks that will supplement my written content.

And this all brings me to one of my favorite conversations from MAX…

Human creativity is becoming more valuable

I also interviewed Aaron Mitchell Finegold, Adobe's Head of Product Marketing for GenStudio, Firefly Enterprise, and Adobe Brand Intelligence.

We talked about what happens when everyone has access to powerful AI tools and can generate enormous amounts of content. One of his main points was that the growing volume of content makes originality and creative judgment even more important.

"The whole industry has really woken up to the unique value of human creativity," Finegold told me. He explained that as the volume of content grows, consumers still have a finite amount of time and attention. That makes standing out increasingly important, and it places more value on original ideas, taste, and creativity.

Adobe's own research reinforces how important human judgment is to creating content that reflects a brand's identity. In its new Brand Intelligence for an AI-Native World report, Adobe found that:

• 87% of enterprise marketing and creative leaders expect trusted brands to become more important as AI becomes more widespread.
• 83% of consumers say consistent brand expression builds trust.
• 24% of marketing or campaign assets reaching reviewers require a judgment call.
• 89% of practitioners say answers to situations missing from brand guidelines often rest with a few people or one team.

I found the last two statistics especially interesting because they illustrate how much creative work depends on experience and judgment. Creative professionals make decisions based on context, audience expectations, brand history, and years of accumulated knowledge. AI technology is now being developed to learn from those decisions and make that knowledge more accessible across teams.

Finegold emphasized that while agentic AI can take on more production tasks, creative professionals still need to understand culture, develop original ideas, and make decisions that reflect a brand's identity and goals. He believes these skills, which take years to develop, will become even more valuable as AI handles more of the execution.

What does all this innovation mean for us creatives?

I also asked Dacay what skills marketers should be developing right now, and she emphasized curiosity and openness.

“Marketers who are critical thinkers, great communicators, good listeners, creative conversationalists, and strategic dot connectors are going to be the ones who thrive in this world,” she told me.

She explained that the technical skills marketers have spent years learning are changing quickly. As AI takes on more of that work, she believes creativity, strategic thinking, and the ability to see opportunities across a business will become increasingly valuable.

Her answer was a good reminder that the skills I've spent my career developing are still at the heart of great marketing. Understanding an audience, asking thoughtful questions, finding an interesting angle, telling a compelling story, and recognizing when something needs another edit all require human judgment.

My biggest takeaway from Adobe MAX

I walked away from MAX blown away by what's coming. Seeing what agentic AI is already capable of made me realize how dramatically creative work could change over the next few years. And I’m interested to see what happens when more people have the tools to bring their ideas to life.

What stayed with me most was an even greater appreciation for human creativity. AI is becoming incredibly capable, but it's our experiences, judgment, curiosity, and unique perspectives that give creative work its value.

We're the ones who understand what audiences care about, come up with original ideas, and recognize when something is worth sharing. I don’t believe AI will ever be able to replace that.

Thanks for reading,

​Ashley R. Cummings​

Partner | 1st Collab

To all my fellow B2B creators!

I've been looking for platforms that connect creators with better brand partnership opportunities, and I finally found one that fits my goals and audience: 1st Collab.

If you're looking for more paid brand collaborations, it's worth checking out.

Here's my referral link if ya wanna try it out!

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