![]() ![]() In response to Thill's question, David Wadhwani, Adobe's president of digital media, said the company has a history of introducing new technology that leads to more productivity and jobs. So if designers are getting laid off, demand for licenses might fall, cutting into Adobe's revenue, or slowing sales growth. A company with, say, 5 graphic designers in-house would buy five licenses. Adobe often sells cloud software subscriptions based on the number of seats, or licenses, which give customers access to the technology. This is a closely watched measure of the company's customer base. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said the "number one question" he gets from investors is whether AI will reduce Adobe's "seats available." Adobe executives didn't answer the question, according to a person familiar with the meeting.Ī similar question was broached during an Adobe earnings call in June. The bigger question for some employees is AI's impact on Adobe's own business.ĭuring an internal staff meeting in June, one employee asked whether generative AI was putting Adobe "in danger of cannibalizing" its lucrative business that targets corporate customers, in exchange for individual users "who want it free or cheap," according to a screenshot of the question submitted online. Some artists have accused Adobe of using their work without express consent or proper compensation, according to VentureBeat. The company didn't respond to a question about what "openly licensed content" means in practice. For example, the company has stated that its Firefly AI models was trained on Adobe Stock images, "openly licensed content," and public domain content where copyright has expired. The company says it is pushing for responsible use of AI. Other startups, like Midjourney, StabilityAI, and Runway, have reached sky-high valuations based on similar image-generation technology.īut Adobe, with over $17 billion in annual sales, is by far the biggest of them. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has developed DALL-E, which can create images from text prompts. "I don't think we should feel guilty for providing better and faster tools, as long as it's done ethically," that person wrote in the Slack channel.Īdobe isn't the only company with art-generating AI. One person said many freelancers and hobbyists will benefit from the increased output, even if some companies reduce their design workforce. Photoshop made artists more productive, and AI will only increase their efficiency, they said. One person said some artists now feel like they are "slaves" to the AI algorithm, since their jobs will mostly involve just touching-up AI-generated work. Other messages in the Adobe Slack channel were more critical of the AI revolution, calling it "depressing" and an "existential crisis" for many designers. AI systems could eliminate 300 million jobs worldwide, including a quarter of those in the arts and design industries, Goldman Sachs estimated recently.Īdobe's spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment. Now, though, this technology has become so potent that it might put some of these customers out of work. The company relies on graphic designers as customers and has helped make the industry more productive with powerful software. "Is this what we want?" the person wrote.Īdobe has jumped into the AI race, putting itself in a tricky position. One senior designer at Adobe recently wrote in an internal AI ethics Slack channel that a billboard and advertising business he knows plans to reduce the size of its graphic design team because of Photoshop's new text-to-image features. The response from some Adobe employees has been less enthusiastic, according to internal messages viewed by Insider and interviews with employees. Wall Street has mostly cheered these developments. Photoshop, Adobe's popular software for graphic designers, got an AI tool that lets users add or remove graphic elements, or extend a picture, with simple text prompts. The software giant this year unveiled Firefly, a suite of generative AI tools that's rolling out across many of its products. Inside Adobe, there's a debate raging over new AI technology that threatens to kill jobs among a key group of customers and potentially undermine the company's business model. Employees are also concerned about AI "cannibalizing" Adobe's own business.Adobe AI tools make it easy to add new graphic elements or edit photos with text prompts.Adobe employees worry their AI technology could kill graphic designer jobs.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |