Observed Signal · Jun 29, 2026 · Product Launch · Source: The Drum · Impact: 4/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Adobe Becomes Its Own Toughest AI Customer
Adobe's international marketing team, led by Simon Morris, used generative AI (notably Adobe Firefly) internally as a 'customer zero' testbed and found that technology worked but existing processes did not. Internal rollout exposed siloed workflows, skill gaps and a studio bottleneck; the team built Gem Studio to let marketers self-produce content and embedded artwork libraries to prevent brand drift. Diagnosing declining organic traffic tied to LLM-driven search also led Adobe to create a brand-visibility product now offered to customers. Morris emphasizes AI automates repetitive production tasks (variants, resizing, measurement aggregation) but does not replace taste, creativity or strategic storytelling — successful adoption required rethinking processes and sustained training.
Adobe — a major MarTech/creative software vendor — used internal AI adoption to build and ship new creative tooling and a brand-visibility product; this signals important shifts for how marketers adopt generative AI and for vendor product roadmaps.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Simon Morris is vice-president of international marketing at Adobe.
- Adobe's marketing team deployed Adobe Firefly internally and identified process and organizational issues during rollout.
- Adobe developed Gem Studio, a performance-marketing tool that enables marketers to self-produce content with built-in artwork libraries to protect brand consistency.
- A decline in organic traffic linked to large language model (LLM) search behavior prompted Adobe to build a brand-visibility product that is now available to customers.
- Morris states AI handled production tasks (content variants, asset resizing, measurement aggregation) but cannot replace creative taste or originality.
Connected Companies & Entities
1 Entity mapped“When Morris’s team began rolling out Adobe Firefly across its own marketing operations, the technology performed....”
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Adobe: AI Redefines Where Creative Value Lies
Adobe marketing leaders Rachel Thornton and Simon Morris told The Drum at Cannes Lions 2026 that AI is not killing creativity but shifting where value is created across marketing. They said AI is reshaping discovery, production, personalization and measurement — for example, marketers must think about brand visibility on new LLM-driven search surfaces. AI is automating repetitive production work and scaling creative variants, enabling creatives to focus on storytelling, strategy and taste. Adobe is using its own marketing organisation as 'customer zero' to test features such as Brand Visibility. Thornton and Morris advised agencies to treat AI as a catalyst for organisational change and skills investment rather than a standalone tool. They cited examples including WPP, Code and Theory, Publicis and Dentsu embedding AI into workflows.
AI Traffic Doubles, Boosting Holiday Retail Engagement
Adobe's annual holiday shopping forecast predicts AI-driven traffic to US retail sites will more than double (up 130% YoY) this holiday season. A complementary survey of 5,000 US consumers found that AI-referred shoppers add items to carts at a 32% higher rate, and 43% generate more revenue per visit than non-AI traffic, reversing a previous trend. Over 75% of AI-assistant users feel more confident in purchases, and over two-thirds are less likely to return items. Experts advise brands to design for both human and AI-agent customers, as AI tools increasingly serve as discovery and referral channels.
Brands Face New AI Shopping Gatekeepers
AI assistants are emerging as new gatekeepers between brands and consumers, with product recommendations influenced by the assistant used. Jellyfish's analysis found Alexa for Shopping recommends nearly all toys from Amazon's own store, while ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode recommend more diverse retailers. Microsoft's Copilot cites retailers most often, according to Tinuiti, with the top 100 retailers comprising 34% of citations. Marketers are responding: Dentsu Creative's survey shows 59% of CMOs optimize for AI-enabled search. Adobe reports AI-referred shoppers generate 53% more revenue per visit, a reversal from a year earlier when non-AI visits were worth more. HUMAN Security highlights Meta's Muse as a rapidly growing AI agent for shopping, accounting for 72% of daily AI-agent requests and showing high checkout intent.
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