Adobe Head of Digital David Wadhwani joins Bloomberg to discuss how the company is rolling out Adobe Firefly generative artificial intelligence into the design workflow, allowing users a way to add, extend, or cut content from images using simple text prompts.

San Jose

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

Adobe launches generative fill in Photoshop

Let's just start with the generative fill tool. And if you could tell us how in practice it would work and how it would meaningfully change the end product and perhaps create demand for new uses of the software. Absolutely. Scarlett thank you for having me on. Today's a big day for Adobe with the introduction of generative technology going into Photoshop for the first time. We actually launched Firefly which is our core generative capabilities seven weeks ago as a standalone capability so people could create images they could create text effects. Today the massive step forward for us and the industry is that we've taken that and we've natively integrated it into our creative cloud application starting with Photoshop first. So now someone working in Photoshop can as you see on the screen here start to affect the images and save hours of work simply by using text to help generate generate and fill information around it. And we do that in a way that leverages all of the authoring capabilities of Photoshop including its layers so that the work enables a lot more iteration a lot more exploration and a lot more productivity because of the way people are able to use it in their existing workflows. Right. And I know that Adobe is all about serving the creative community. I know also that Adobe ignited some anger earlier this year for potentially training a models on user files by default. I know that that's been resolved. But what did you learn from that episode. Communication is key. We've never trained on on user files that are part of creative cloud. We've been incredibly transparent through throughout this process. And in fact I think we've taken industry leading position on this. Everything that we've used to train our models we have absolute right to use it. So it's you know and we are we have the complete origin of that content so that we've been able to be completely transparent with everyone. How our models are trained. We've also been able to you know to announce that because we know where the content is coming from principally Adobe stock we are also going to be compensating the contributors for the benefits that we get and the industry gets from the content. So we're very excited about how this can be positive for creators. Now David I think that incident is a good example of just how sensitive folks are approaching the use of A.I. in creation of assets. When I think about kind of the impact outside of Adobe of what your customers are using your products for I have to ask the question that I think a lot of folks are asking these days when it comes to A.I. misinformation when it comes to tools to creating that misinformation. Where is the role of folks like yourself in making sure that we don't have kind of A.I. generated misinformation out in the world. How is Adobe thinking about what I'm sure will continue to be a tricky issue as generative I really gets into the hands of people at large. Yeah I think I think we all in the tech industry need to take a very lean in position on on working with governments and regulators to address this issue. So our position has been and we've worked with both the White House and Capitol Hill. We've also been very involved with with the EU with their A.I. Bill of Rights. And we believe that the right approach here is to do something called contra content credentials. What content credentials effectively does is it's a nutrition label for every piece of content you see online. And we make sure that anything that flows through our products whether it's the A.I. generated capabilities of Firefly or whether it's our core flagship applications like Photoshop have the provenance or have the origin of all that content in it so that when someone sees it ultimately on a Web site they can go and look at and say well what was this and how was it generated so they can use their own judgment about whether this is content that they want to depend on or content that they don't trust. So I spent a lot of time in the social media space. I spent a lot of time with creators and advertisers. They're trying to move really fast. They are looking at things like CapCut. Some of your competitors can. But there's a slew of new kind of startups who are pushing in and seemingly trying to take some of Adobe's traditional creation business. How are you facing competition from these kind of younger players who are perhaps not providing that digital provenance that you guys are committing to. Well first of all you know the Adobe core business for creative and our business overall continues to grow. I think we as you probably saw in our last earnings call we had a great quarter. We beat and then we raised our guidance for the year. So the core machinery continues to grow both in terms of what we're doing for creative professionals but also this massive and growing population of creativity for all. Everyone that's part of the creator economy that are the younger generations and students that are looking to add more content that stands out. So we're benefiting from from all of that at the foundation. We think innovation is key and we think the way that works is having a set of products from Firefly which you can use just for fun and enjoy yourself to Adobe Express which is perfect for knowledge workers and and create a creator professional creator economy all the way to Photoshop and then enable everyone to sort of create along that continuum and enable them to work together on that. So we feel very good about the breadth of offerings and the onboarding that users have into those offerings. Well speaking of startups of course you led the purchase of the design startup Figma not so long ago. And the US government is preparing a lawsuit to potentially block it. And we know the UK has already done so. Your CEO has said that you're working to convince authorities that it's not not anti-competitive. How's that going. Very quickly. We're we're cooperating and sharing all the information that we have with the regulators around the world. Our core belief and continues to be that the substance of the case is that this is an adjacency that's good for the industry and good for consumers. We see a lot of potential benefits and and we're confident in the case and we just have to let the process play out.

President Joe Biden has signed a bill into law that provides billions of dollars of new U.S. aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia. The legislation also includes $26 billion for Israel, as well as $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Gaza. Biden also signed a separate bill tied to the aid package that bans TikTok in the U.S. if its owner fails to divest the video app.

Washington

Israel-Gaza War

Ukraine Invasion

Biden signs Ukraine, Israel aid, TikTok ban package

A North Korean delegation led by a cabinet minister for international trade is visiting Iran, according to state media. The rare public visit signals increased cooperation between the two countries, which are believed to have secret military ties.

Pyongyang

North Korea delegation visits Iran in rare public trip

The German government plans to resume cooperation with the United Nations agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in Gaza. The announcement comes after a new report concluded that Israel had not provided enough evidence to back up its claims that hundreds of UNRWA staff are military operatives in so-called terrorist groups in Gaza.

Berlin

Germany to resume funding UNRWA Palestinian agency

The United States Justice Department has agreed to pay almost $139 million to victims of sex abuser Larry Nassar, for its bungled investigation into the former USA Gymnastics team doctor. For nearly two decades, Nassar subjected hundreds of people to abuse under the guise of performing medical treatment.

Justice Dept. to pay $139 million to USA Gymnastics abuse victims

The United Nations called for “a clear, transparent and credible investigation” of mass graves uncovered at two major hospitals in war-torn Gaza that were raided by Israeli troops. Credible investigators must have access to the sites, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.

Sderot

U.N. calls for investigation into Gaza mass graves

A bishop whose stabbing was live streamed while delivering a church service wants his video to remain online, supporting X founder Elon Musk's stance. The technology company is currently in a legal fight with Australia’s e-Safety commissioner over the graphic video.

Council of the City of Sydney

Stabbed Sydney bishop supports Musk stance

Seven juveniles have been arrested and a further five are being interviewed by police, after a series of raids by counterterrorism police in the south-west Sydney suburb of Greenacre. The arrests follow the stabbing a bishop.

Wakeley

Teenagers arrested in ongoing Sydney anti-terror raids

The US Senate has passed a 95 Billion dollar aid package providing aid to Ukraine and Israel, humanitarian relief for Gaza, as well as 8 Billion dollars for security in Taiwan. Part of that package is a provision that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok.

U.S. Senate approves $95b aid package for Israel and Ukraine

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is heading to Shanghai and Beijing for three days of talks with senior Chinese officials as US-China ties are at a critical point. His visit also comes amid rising concern in Europe over Chinese espionage with several suspected spies detained in Germany and the UK.

Beijing

Blinken heads to China amid rising concern in Europe

After a tribal welcome to the mountains of Papua New Guinea, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has spent the night camping on the Kokoda Track in an Anzac Day trek aimed at drawing the two countries closer.

Kokoda

Prime Minister walking the Kokoda Track

Residents in New Delhi complained of breathing problems after a massive fire broke out at a Ghazipur landfill the day before. Large plumes of smoke continued to rise from the burning landfill in the city’s eastern district, where excavators were seen removing piles of garbage to deescalate the fire.

New Delhi

Landfill fire envelops New Delhi in smoke

Protests in support of Palestine continue at university campuses across the United States, despite a crackdown by police. Hundreds of students and teachers have been arrested over the past week.

New York

Protests rage at U.S. universities over Israel’s war on Gaza

An aide to a German far-right member of the European Parliament has been arrested on suspicion of spying for China, German prosecutors said, deepening concerns about foreign interference ahead of June's European elections.

Aide to far-right German MEP arrested for spying for China

Five people, including a child, have died in an attempt to cross the English Channel from France, hours after Britain passed a bill to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda to try to deter the dangerous crossings.

Wimereux

Migrants drown in Channel hours after U.K. passes Rwanda bill

Police arrested dozens of people at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale University in Connecticut and New York University in Manhattan on Monday, as the war in Gaza continued to reverberate through U.S. university campuses.

Dozens arrested at U.S. universities as Gaza protests grow

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on April 22 threatened possible legal action against claims that it may have covered up the issue of Chinese swimmers testing positive for a banned substance before the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, as global sports groups piled pressure on the regulator and demanded an investigation into the case.

Tokyo

Chinese Olympic swim team doping scandal heats up

Court documents have revealed Bruce Lehrmann refused an offer to settle with Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson before his failed defamation case had begun hearings.

Bruce Lehrmann refused settlement before court case

The lawyer representing a former NSW Police officer charged with murdering Jesse Baird and Luke Davies says his client's defence may involve mental health elements.

Man accused of murdering Sydney couple faces court

A western New South Wales man charged with murdering a young woman was on bail for several violent charges against the same victim.

Forbes

Man faces court over murder of young Forbes woman

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda within 10 to 12 weeks as the upper house of parliament finally passed required legislation, delayed for weeks by attempts to alter the plan.

London

U.K. parliament passes Rwanda asylum law

New York prosecutors said on the first day of Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial that the former president broke the law and corrupted the 2016 election by trying to cover up sexual encounters with a porn star and a Playboy model, while his defense lawyer said he committed no crime.

Jury hears opening statements at Trump hush money trial

Floods swamped parts of China's Guangdong province following record-breaking rains, sparking worries about the region's defenses against bigger deluges induced by extreme weather events.

Guangdong Province

China's Guangdong floods spark extreme weather fears

Israel has yet to provide evidence for its accusations that hundreds of staff with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) are members of terrorist groups, according to a review of the agency's neutrality released.

Tel Aviv-Yafo

'No evidence' of UNRWA, Hamas links

Arj Barker has defended asking a mother to leave his show at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The woman said she was humiliated after being asked to leave while breastfeeding her baby during Barker’s performance.

Melbourne

Comedian criticised for removing breastfeeding mother from show

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi is being accused of hate speech for comments he made about Muslims at an election rally, referring to the religious community as "infiltrators." Nearly a billion people are eligible to cast ballots during the six weeks of voting, which started Friday.

India's Modi accused of anti-Muslim hate speech amid election

The Philippines and the United States are holding joint naval exercises in a climate of tension between China and its neighbors. Despite international legal rulings, Beijing claims the entire South China Sea as its own. That's contested by the Philippines and other Indian Ocean nations.

Manila

Filipino, U.S. troops set to begin joint combat exercise

More than one year after prosecutors pressed charges in Manhattan against former President Donald Trump, they are presenting their evidence to a jury. Opening statements have begun in the first-ever trial of a former president as Trump faces 34 felony counts for falsifying business records.

Manhattan

Opening statements begin in Trump hush money trial

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would fight against sanctions being imposed on any Israeli military units for alleged rights violations, after media reports said the U.S. was planning such a step.

Jerusalem

Netanyahu says he will fight any sanctions on army units

Accused triple murderer Erin Patterson has faced court for the first time in five months over the alleged mushroom poisonings of her relatives last year.

Leongatha

Accused mushroom murderer faces court

Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has flagged more tax relief is on the cards if the Government can find room in next month's budget. Cost of living issues are dominating the political agenda, as inflation bites.

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