Everything About Adobe MAX

Adobe MAX is Adobe’s yearly creativity conference, where it announces the biggest updates to Creative Cloud apps such as Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, and Lightroom, and to its Firefly AI tools. MAX 2026 took place in Miami in the week of November 9, with keynotes streamed free online.

MAX 2026 in one line: AI agents that do the tedious parts of creative work.

• AI agents inside the apps you already use
• More precise edits that change only what you ask for
• New Firefly tools for design, graphs, and prototypes
• Adobe apps opening up to outside AI assistants

• Relight, a feature to change the lighting in an image
• Generative Restyle with sliders to control prompt-based styles
• A camera-angle option, reported to be in beta
• An AI assisted editor aimed at people who find Photoshop hard to learn

• A new colour grading system for professionals
• Generative Remove to take objects out of video
• An AI assistant, reported to be in beta, that handles multi-step edits from text prompts
• A mobile agent for iOS and Android in private preview

• A tool to fix blinking eyes
• A blemish removal tool

Firefly Builder

A prototyping tool in private beta, seen as a rival to Figma

Firefly Design and Graph

Tools for layouts and on-brand graphs

Precise image editing

Change one part of an image without altering the rest

Video assembly

Build videos from clips, images, and sound effects

Firefly AI Assistant

A planning mode and always-on agents for recurring tasks

Adobe is previewing local Model Context Protocol connections for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and After Effects. These let AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini work with Adobe features and project files on your computer.

• New models from Topaz Labs, which Adobe acquired: Wonder 4 for upscaling and denoising, and ImageHDR
• Firefly already offers models from Google, OpenAI, Runway, ElevenLabs, Black Forest Labs, Kling, and ByteDance

Sneaks is the MAX session where Adobe engineers show experimental features that may or may not ship. The 2026 Sneaks was scheduled for November 11. Treat anything shown there as a preview, not a promise.

Some features are shipping now, while others are betas, private previews, or prototypes. Adobe had not fully explained pricing and credit rules for the new AI features at the time of writing. Update your apps and check Adobe’s release notes for what your plan includes.

• Update Creative Cloud and try one new feature on a real project
• Watch the keynote and Sneaks replays on Adobe’s site
• Join betas if you rely on a specific app
• Check how generative credits apply before heavy use
• Check Content Credentials settings when you publish AI-assisted work