Adobe used its annual Max conference to show off a set of experiments that may never ship. The company calls them “sneaks,” and this year’s batch pushes generative tools past simple prompt boxes. Three projects stand out, and each one changes how a creator interacts with the software.
The first is Project Screen Test. It builds AI characters by letting you talk to them instead of describing them. You start with a few personality traits, such as anxious, shy, or awkward, then pick a voice. You can choose a preset, describe the sound, or upload a sample clip for reference.
An audition room for synthetic actors
From there the tool turns into something like a video call. You converse with the character to fill in backstory, temperament, goals, flaws, fears, and movement quirks. A Personality tab lets you adjust any trait the conversation generated. When the persona feels right, you describe a scenario and the tool renders an animated screen test.
Adobe says the project is a standalone creative exercise for now. It is unclear whether the feature will appear inside the company’s existing AI video products. The Verge’s Jess Weatherbed called it the weirdest of the three demos.
Photos you can walk through
The second experiment turns a still image into a space you can explore. Instead of a flat picture, the output behaves like a rough 3D scene. Viewers can move around inside the frame and look at objects from different angles. That has obvious uses for product shots, real estate listings, and museum archives.
The third project attacks a familiar chore. Photo editing becomes a copy and paste action, where a selected object or lighting effect moves between images with minimal cleanup. Adobe has spent years automating masking, and this demo pushes the idea toward plain language editing.
Sneaks rarely become products on a fixed schedule. Some arrive in Creative Cloud a year later, and others vanish after the keynote. What matters is direction. Adobe is betting that creators want to converse with characters, step inside images, and stop wrestling with layer panels.
The company has not announced pricing or availability for any of the three projects. For a closer look at shipping AI tools, see our coverage of Microsoft’s Auto SR upscaler on the Xbox Ally X.
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