Adobe’s AI-Powered Image Editor
Adobe wanted to democratize image editing. Adobe's new AI-powered desktop image editor transforms complex editing into one-click operations, making professional-quality enhancement accessible to marketers, SMBs, office workers, and consumers. The app bridges Adobe's ecosystem by serving as both a powerful standalone editor and a gateway to Adobe Express, where users leverage their enhanced images to create compelling marketing materials and presentations.
Problem
Complex desktop image editors overwhelm non-creative users who need quick, professional results.
Solution
AI-powered editor simplifies editing through contextual assistance and one-click generative AI enhancements.
What I Brought
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I ensured our AI-powered image editor enhances creativity rather than replacing artistic control, designing intuitive, bias-free interactions that empower users with smart automation while maintaining transparency, trust, and seamless usability.
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I worked closely with engineers, product managers and researchers to translate complex AI models into seamless, user-friendly editing tools, ensuring that every AI-driven enhancement aligns with real creative workflows, feels natural to users, and is continuously refined based on research and feedback.
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I fostered a culture of rapid prototyping and continuous iteration, leveraging AI to streamline tedious workflows, enable real-time intelligent editing, and push the boundaries of creative expression through adaptive, context-aware, and highly personalized design experiences.
Design Vision
Our vision was based on user research, landscape analysis, and design concepting. With this strategy the team proceeded to create an end-to experience.
Conceptual Model
AI Editor Demo
This video gives a quick walk-through of the Figma prototype showing an end-to-end flow of both image editing and screen captures.
Experience Design
After scanning the image the AI assistant makes suggestions for contextual edits.
AI also makes in-context, object-level edits possible - easily removing, moving, flipping or deleting objects.
Users can easily insert objects to an image using AI prompts and contextually relevant stock.
Users can apply AI suggestions on multiple images for consistent and quick results.
“Ideas” would introduce the user to the creative features of Express through previews.
AI would also generate Express templates that match the content and color of the images.
Built-in screen capturing would allow for still and video capture.
The editor comes with a library of elements and text to elegantly annotate the capture.
Bridging to Adobe Express
By positioning the AI image editor as the default desktop app for viewing and enhancing images, we created a natural entry point into Adobe Express. The strategy centered on meeting users in their everyday workflow, then seamlessly expanding their capabilities through the Express platform. When users discover they can instantly transform their enhanced images into marketing materials and presentations, it creates a compelling end-to-end experience that drives adoption of Adobe's broader creative tools.
25M
projected installations of app
by bundling an AI-first desktop image editor with Adobe Reader and making editing accessible to non-creative users
34%
increase in Express MAU
targeted by unifying Adobe's image editing capabilities while serving as an entry point to Express’s creative tools
Outcomes
Created an AI-first desktop image editor that makes professional-quality editing accessible to non-creative users
Unified Adobe's image editing capabilities across Express and desktop while serving as an entry point to Adobe's creative ecosystem
Delivered contextual AI assistance and one-click enhancements that match mobile editing convenience with desktop power
Expected to drive adoption of Adobe Express as users leveraged their enhanced images to create marketing materials
Next Steps
Continue exploring ways for AI to improve the user experience
Explore mobile app opportunities and ways to import mobile images
Consider cloud storage to make edited photos available across the Adobe ecosystem of products
Develop better interop between the editor and Acrobat docs
Add more connectors to import images to app