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Adobe said Tuesday morning it would integrate generative artificial intelligence into its popular Photoshop editing software, making the application more accessible to untrained users.
The new AI tools will work similarly to other AI image creation technology, such as Midjourney and DALL-E, which allow people to produce pictures from simple text prompts.
Photoshop, which was launched in 1987, became a software standard in many creative industries, with its powerful tools capable of both photo editing and graphic design. Those tools came with a somewhat steep learning curve, requiring some skill and training.
In a demo shown to NBC News, Adobe Vice President of Digital Imaging Maria Yap placed a dog’s portrait into an expanded background with a four-word prompt, “spring trees with sunshine,” taking what could be an hourslong editing process down to minutes. 
David Wadhwani, Adobe’s president of digital media, said he hopes AI paired with the Photoshop tools and images will open doors for more creators to produce high-quality content.
“I think it is going to have a transformational impact in the number of people that create content and the number of people that can monetize the creation,” Wadhwani said.
The new feature comes amid ongoing concern about the way generative AI — defined as AI that can create text, images and video — will change thousands and maybe even millions of jobs. 
Adobe is rolling out some safeguards along with the new version of Photoshop, including a free, open-source tool called Content Credentials, which allows creators to attach labels to an image’s metadata verifying whether an image has been altered by AI. The program is part of a coalition called Content Authenticity Initiative made up of more than 1,000 companies looking to create more transparency and trust in photos and videos shared online. CAI was launched in 2019 by Adobe, and members include Microsoft, Stability AI and Synthesia, and other leaders in AI and tech. 
The company is also addressing ethical and legal concerns from artists by training its AI only on its licensed stock imagery, and Adobe plans to compensate artists who contribute their work to train its AI. Other AI art companies have been the subject of criticism and lawsuits from artists who say their work is being stolen by generative AI applications being trained on any and all images on the internet.
Some industry experts worry that the Photoshop development will cut out certain workers from creative agencies and brands as the technology becomes easier for anyone to use.
Terrence Masson, chair of the computer arts program at the School of Visual Arts, said artistry will still be necessary on the higher end but others may get cut out.
“You’ll definitely get a creative agency saying, well, we can just ask for a sneaker campaign and we get it,” Masson said. “We don’t have to hire a million dollar agency to do this for us anymore.”
Jacob Ward, a technology correspondent for NBC News, is a 2018-19 Berggruen Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, where he is writing a book about how artificial intelligence will shape human behavior. 
Sara Ruberg is an associate producer with NBC News.
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