Adobeコミュニティの声とAIへの選択肢
Welcome to the Yuka Studio Podcast, a talk showwhere tech meets creativity.
In this episode, recorded at Adobe Max, we'rejoined by Parimal Deshpande,
Vice President at Adobe, who leads community andpartner marketing.
We talk about the future of creativity in the AIera,
how Adobe builds with its creator communities, andhis very first trip to Japan.
Thank you for having me.
Can you introduce yourself and what you do atAdobe?
And thank you, Yuka, for being here at Adobe Max.
I'm Parimal Deshpande. I live in Seattle.
I am the Vice President in Adobe that leadscommunity and partner marketing,
including Adobe Express, the product that's here.
So great to connect with your audience.
Yeah, thank you so much.
So we just came out of the keynote, which had alot of exciting updates.
Have you been able to gather some of the communityfeedback so far?
And what has the community been saying?
Yes, yes. In fact, in my role,
I interact a lot with communities.
Yesterday, also, we talked to our Adobeambassadors around the world.
We also talked to our Adobe VIP communities.
And in getting the response,
I think they're very excited about what Adobe isdoing.
A few themes show up.
One is Adobe is really leaning into thecommunities itself.
As an example, our new incoming CEO, Anil Chakraborty,
he attended yesterday's community privatesessions,
and I hosted him as a fireside chat to meet withthe communities,
the ambassadors, the VIPs.
And you saw a lot of community work being showcased or talked about
in today's keynotes,
including the hundreds of features that Deepatalked about
that are coming from the community directly.
So they asked, we answered.
These are features that community members haveasked around the world.
The second thing is all the creative cloudinnovation that we are seeing.
And the way we are doing it is,
yes, people have a lot of views on AI.
Some people would rather not use AI.
Some people really want to use AI.
And we're trying to give people choice.
Choice is how they want to work.
Choice in the models they can use.
And that way we respect creators and communities
on how they want to work.
That's the second thing.
And all the innovation that's coming creativecloud with AI
or even without AI.
And the third thing is Firefly.
It started out as a commercially safe model,
but now it's evolved very rapidly
into your all-in-one AI studio for creators
who want to have the power and precision.
And at the same time, AI, that's Firefly design orgraphs.
So I think a lot of innovation happening.
The best part ultimately is what our communitiescreate
including communities in Japan.
We can't wait to see what they end up creating.
創作とAIの役割分担
You mentioned giving people the choices
of whether to use AI or how they use AI.
And kind of the boundary of
where do people want to have AI work on theirproject
versus what is their actual creative story orworkflows.
How do you talk to communities
about where they can draw that line?
Well, the line is to be drawn by every creator.
And there is no one-size-fits-all answer
because every creator has a different point ofview.
And at the same time, they mature.
They change. The point of view changes.
Let me give you an example.
I'm a photographer myself
and I spend a lot of time with photographercommunities.
In photography, there are things thatphotographers love doing.
That's the creative craft in how you compose animage
and trying to edit in Lightroom or Photoshop whatyou saw.
That being said, there's a lot of tedious work inphotography also
which is culling, assisted culling.
You take a thousand images in a max event likethis.
You want one.
We have only so much time in the day.
So if all the work that a photographer wouldrather not do
that is repetitive, that is tedious, that isworkflow-oriented
can be done with AI and AI agents in the tool oftheir choice
so that is the best of both.
So you get to have your creative control.
You always have control.
No matter what, you always have the control.
And at the same time, you can delegate things
that you would rather not do to AI
and that frees up more time to do things that youenjoy doing.
So we see this in photography.
We see this in design.
We see this in illustration.
We see this pattern everywhere.
Every creator has to decide what that line is
and where they want to get AI's help
and where they rather want to have control.
And that's what we see.
新人クリエイターへの学び方の助言
I think a lot of entry-level designers andphotographers, maybe
they had to do these tedious work
and that's how they kind of got trained almost.
For newer people coming into the industry,
do you have any advice for them
or how they can train their eye
without doing these tedious work anymore?
Yeah, well, even the tedious work, I'd say
if people want to do it the old-fashioned way,that's still okay
because that's a choice
because sometimes in that workflow, you'relearning.
You're learning how things work through thatstruggle.
It's like in writing.
When you write the old-fashioned way or youdebate,
that struggle is the learning.
At the same time,
there's sometimes a different way.
Some people would call it the smarter way.
It's why do it, but you don't have to do it.
So my advice would be experiment.
Be open-minded, number one.
Especially when you're junior and career, be open-minded.
Number two is meet fellow creators
and fellow creators that you are inspired by,
creators whose work you like
and at the same time, more importantly,
seek out creators who have a different point ofview than you
because in that different point of view,
sometimes your eyes open up.
You have a different point of view
and it's a journey.
There's no right or wrong answers.
What is right is what is right for you.
It's a journey.
What might seem right today
might feel like you are ready to take the nextstep tomorrow
and life is a lifelong journey of...
Creation is a journey.
It's a lifelong learning.
Fireflyの対象者と安全性
So with Firefly, we saw a lot of new updates theretoo.
It seems like there's a lot of different use cases
from beginners to very professional environments
like Disney.
For creators, how do you think
the environment will change for them
since it's becoming so much more easier
to begin using Firefly?
And is it going to be a professional tool
or is it like a beginner-friendly tool
or is it like a mix of both?
It is a mix of both.
The scope of Firefly...
Firefly caters to...
At its core, it's for creators.
Creators defined as people who have a passion fordesign
either aspire to have a following
or want to have a following, already have.
At the same time, it is also being used
by kind of more consumers at the same time.
Consumers with a creative mindset on one side
and the other side is the creative professionals
who also use Firefly.
So the use case has changed
based on the type of audience for Firefly.
I would say Firefly is a really good blend ofboth.
It gives us a lot of flexibility
both in terms of the power and the control
and also the ease of use because of AI.
AI itself is...
The whole thing about AI is
it can automate things for you through agentic AI.
So it really meets you where you are
depending on the use cases that you have.
And then when you're ready to go deeper
it lets you give the path to go deeper.
Ultimately, with this integration with thecreative cloud
that's the ultimate power and precision tool wehave.
We also got MCP integration, which is reallyexciting.
I love using external AI tools
to control different software.
It's very mind-blowing.
Yes, it is mind-blowing.
Yes, it's a new way.
And now we have that on Adobe products, which isgreat.
So when you control Adobe products
with other tools like Cloud or HGPT,
how does security work?
Yeah.
So in terms of security, we don't...
Our Firefly AI model, our Firefly model
is safe for commercial use.
Obviously, you have the choice of other models
you want to use, third-party models.
Second is we don't train on user data in the end
unless we're compensating.
So you still have the security controls that youhave.
On the enterprise side,
we have all the security credentials in Fireflybuilt in.
That way, any of your content you know is safe andsecure.
So it doesn't connect with your actual creativecloud
data or anything like that.
So it just basically kind of controls yoursoftware
just like a person would.
Yes, just like a person would, correct.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Adobeのコミュニティ支援戦略
So I heard you're coming to Japan.
Yes, I am coming to Japan.
I'm actually going there, too.
Great.
I'm very excited about coming to Japan.
I'll see you in Japan.
I would love to see you and your community inJapan.
It's my first time.
Amazing.
Very, very excited.
So it's your first time in Tokyo?
First time in Tokyo, first time in Japan.
What are you most excited about?
To meet the Japanese creators.
I'm very, very excited.
I've heard so much about it.
I've been to 40 plus countries.
Oh, wow.
Never Japan.
Why not?
And we will fix that problem this time.
Amazing.
I'm excited.
Can you tell me about the kind of overall strategy
that you have for the Adobe Creative Community?
And then we can kind of talk about the Japanese.
Yeah, yeah.
To us, the community, and you heard the wordcommunity
in the keynote at least probably 50 times.
From Anil, from Deepa, from Forest, from everykeynote speaker
is because it's not just a word.
It is something that is deeply ingrained
in how we are building products.
I would use the word community over a customer
because community are people
who have a sense of belonging to each other.
And they start their communities.
They are self-sustained communities.
And we want to build products for the community inmind.
In terms of strategy, I'd say one is
to actually prioritize community meetups
both online and in real life.
In real life is very important.
As an example, this is why I'm coming to Japan
for Max's tour in Japan.
Creativity often can be very isolating, right?
And we hear that pattern all the time
because you are there doing your thing.
And hence, Max is a community celebration rightnow, Max Miami
is because people love meeting each other
and fellow community creators.
And they follow each other.
But now they're meeting for the first time.
So our first strategy is to make sure
that we're investing in the community
by showing up where the communities are
by going to where they are.
It could be online.
It could be in real life events.
We are funding and partnering with communities
like Creative Mornings
which is an independent community around theworld.
You heard about us talking about that.
We are investing in Adobe Film and TV Fund.
Today evening, we will talk about the winners.
But we have invested significant efforts in that.
We have community ambassadors around the world
that we invest in.
And so that's one part.
Second is to get their feedback
and to hear that feedback
and prioritize the feedback.
So we take it very seriously.
We have a system inside
where every feedback that comes from a community
we have a system in place
that talks about so-and-so creator in Japan
asks for this feature in Premiere
that is specific to a text
or so-and-so asks in India
about this feature in Lightroom
and so on and so forth.
We track it.
And then when we close the loop
to celebrate the community
and hence you talked about
we saw in the keynote
talking about hundreds of features
literally coming from the community.
And the third is
we are committed to figure out
how we can nurture communities.
We can bring our resources
to give them learning,
give them career paths,
help them monetize,
help them grow by celebrating them.
At MAX, we are showcasing
100 plus community artwork
and putting our marketing and media behind it
so that they get more followers,
they get more brand deals and so on.
Amazing.
So I feel like I embodied the Adobe community
多様なクリエイターの事例
because my first Adobe MAX was in 2018, I believe.
And then I came for 2018, 2019.
But I made so many friends there.
One of my best friends now...
Are we friends now?
I guess so.
We are friends.
OK.
I'm like now best friends with one of them.
I have so many different friends
in different countries.
So whenever I travel,
I get to meet them
and I met them through Adobe MAX.
So it has been really amazing.
It is.
And I have to plus one to what you said.
I'm a creator myself.
I'm a photographer.
And of course,
I happen to be an Adobe employee,
which is great.
I'm very proud of it.
Every time I connect with someone in thecommunity,
here or even online,
it is so inspiring
because everybody has such a unique story to tell.
To give you a small example,
one of the latest ambassadors
to join the Adobe Ambassador community
is a fantastic photographer
called Gary Williamson from the UK.
He is a photographer.
Great work.
We saw his work.
And we said let's...
I think he has a unique perspective
for how he takes photos.
And we will invite him
to the Ambassador community.
I'm going to interview him
tomorrow for Adobe Live.
He is blind.
Oh, wow.
And so when we introduce him
to our fellow ambassadors,
many of them are photographers,
how does a blind person take photos?
And we are going to discover that.
And it is so inspiring.
And in the prep session,
when we asked him,
tell us more about your process,
he revealed that
if he were being given back the eyesight,
he would say no.
Because now he has a very unique
creative perspective
because of being blind
and how he takes the photos.
It is incredibly inspiring to us.
It's amazing.
日本のクリエイターコミュニティへの期待
Well, since you are going to be in Japan
for the first time,
so maybe it's kind of too early
to ask you this,
but have you heard about
like the Japanese community,
like what are the differences,
anything that might be different
or like what you're most excited to see?
Yes, I have heard a little bit.
I'm going to experience it
for the first time.
I'm very excited.
So please forgive me
if I am not completely well-versed
in the Japanese community.
But I promise you
by the time I am done with the last day,
I will be much more in tune.
The things that I've heard
from my colleagues,
we have a team in Japan.
We have creative evangelists
on my team that are in Japan.
What we have heard
is a very unique community.
There are multiple sub-communities.
They're all self-sustained.
The communities in Japan
are organized not just on products,
but on kind of discipline.
So photography community,
design community,
print community and so on and so forth.
And the third dimension of
being organized is career paths.
Are they young in career?
Are they more seasoned?
Are they professionals?
So I love that.
That's one unique angle.
Second is Adobe shows up as a peer.
Not as someone
who wants to sell our products.
Of course, we'd love for people
to use our products.
But we show up as a peer,
as equals in the community.
And we bring whatever
we are able to bring in
in terms of our resourcing and help.
And the third thing is products.
Because Japanese culture is unique.
And so there are things
that the uniqueness
translates into specific features.
So I've been given examples
of how initially
there was a feature in Premiere
and UI wasn't quite working out.
The Japanese community gave feedback.
The Adobe evangelists in Japan
routed that to the Premiere team.
And they said,
Ah, got it.
And then now that feature
is into the product,
especially for Japan.
I guess like text, for example.
Text is a great example of that.
Correct, correct.
And I'm sure once I come in
and you teach me
and I learn more,
we will do even more.
Amazing.
Yeah, I'm so excited
to see you again in Japan.
Thank you very much.
I'll be there
at one of the events, I think.
Yes, and I'll be there too.
And I look forward to connecting again.
And thanks to all your audience.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thanks for the interest.
Thank you.
