Adobe is developing an agent to integrate Adobe Express with Microsoft 365

Adobe is working with Microsoft to develop an AI agent that can generate graphics and design content from within the Microsoft 365 interface.

The Adobe Express Agent, still under development, will allow users to create and embed graphics directly within productivity applications such as Word and PowerPoint, according to Aubrey Cattell, vice president for Adobe’s Creative Cloud Developer Platform and Partner Ecosystem.

The company touted the move during this week’s Adobe Summit, but has not said when the generative AI (genAI) tool would be released; it will ultimately be available to Microsoft 365 customers as a Copilot plugin. 

“We’re building it in partnership with [Microsoft] as they kind of build out their strategy for all third-party agents,” Cattell said.

The agent can create an image for the document, suggest options to generate images, or ask questions. Users can specify within the 365 chatbot interface what images they want  to embed in documents, and the tool will then generate them.

Adobe already has a cloud-based Adobe Express app, which uses generative AI (genAI) to create content for documents, flyers, social media posts and resumes. The tool runs in browsers and mobile devices. 

The Adobe Express Agent is different, as it takes cues from a Word or PowerPoint document and can understand user intent, allowing it to create “something that’s more visual here to express ideas,” Cattell said in an interview.

“You can draw the context from what’s in the document to help you generate something that’s more germane,” Cattell said.

Once users request an image, the agent relies on Adobe’s Firefly text-to-image and text-to-design generative AI model to create content. For example, users might have a concept of a social media post or an ad campaign, which can be described to the Adobe Express Agent.

“It would generate that image and you could just drag it right into your document or into your PowerPoint presentation,” Cattell said.

A basic version of Adobe Express is already available for free. (Adobe has also integrated it  into Wix for website creation, and in Box to store and edit images.)

Adobe has also shipped an Adobe Express custom GPT for ChatGPT where users can request a template using the conversational interface. But there’s an advantage to integrating the agent with the Microsoft 365 interface.

“It’s literally a Copilot to the artifacts that knowledge workers are creating — [it] is super powerful and definitely levels us up,” Cattell said.

He stressed that Adobe’s platform strategy is to “be where our users are in the places where they’re getting work done.”

Besides creating more engaging content, Adobe’s tools are designed to be safe, understanding that organizations or creators can’t afford “oops” moments, said Liz Miller, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research.

“These are truly agentic additions to a worker’s day,” Miller said. “For Adobe, agents are interactive, they reason, they are autonomous, they take action. This definition is wildly important, not just for Adobe but for their customers as well.”