Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has been at the top of my list of people I’ve wanted to talk to for the show since we first launched — he’s led Adobe for nearly 17 years now, but he doesn’t do too many wide-ranging interviews. I’ve always thought Adobe was an underappreciated company — its tools sit at the center of nearly every major creative workflow you can think of — and with generative AI poised to change the very nature of creative software, it seemed particularly important to talk with Shantanu now.

Adobe sits right at the center of the whole web of tensions, especially as the company has evolved its business and business model over time. And now, AI really changes what it means to make and distribute creative work. Not many people are seeing revenue returns on it just yet and there are the fundamental philosophical challenges of adding AI to photo and video tools. What does it mean when a company like Adobe, which makes the tools so many people use to make their art, sees the creative process as a step in a marketing chain, instead of a goal in and of itself?

Links: 

• How Adobe is managing the AI copyright dilemma, with general counsel Dana Rao 
• Adobe Launches Creative Cloud (2012)
• What was Photoshop like in 1994? 
• Photoshop’s Generative Fill tool turns vacation photos into nightmares - The Verge
• New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune, and others sue OpenAI and Microsoft - The Verge
• The FAIR Act: A New Right to Protect Artists in the Age of AI | Adobe Blog
• Adobe’s Firefly generative AI tools are now generally available - The Verge
• This Wacom AI debacle has certainly taken a turn. - The Verge

Transcript: 

https://www.theverge.com/e/23917997

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge, and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt and was edited by Callie Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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