Adobe launches new GenAI Firefly tool for retailers
The tool enables users to resize marketing campaigns for new products. While it saves time for large retailers, it's unclear whether medium-sized or small retailers will find it valuable.
Adobe is giving retailers the ability to produce content at scale using Firefly, its generative AI text-to-image model.
The stock image and design software provider on Monday introduced Adobe Firefly Bulk Create at NRF 2025, a retailer conference in New York.
Bulk Create lets users automate repetitive tasks in the content production cycle using generative AI.
Users can use the new tool to resize assets for marketing campaigns, such as swapping backgrounds with Firefly-generated images.
Firefly Bulk Create is powered by Services, a collection of APIs that bring Adobe design capabilities such as Generative Fill and Generative Expand into the daily work of content producers. Generative Fill enables users to create imagery with a text prompt. Generative Expand lets users extend images with AI.
The addition of Adobe Bulk Create comes as many AI vendors work to create tools to help retailers and those in the e-commerce industry simplify mundane tasks.
For example, Google also introduced generative AI tools for retailers on Sunday. Google said retailers could use AI agents in Agentspace to personalize the customer experience by offering product recommendations and answering questions. Google Agentspace is the vendor's platform that helps companies build AI agents.
Time saver
Tools like Firefly Bulk Create can help retailers save time in getting a product to market.
Firefly Bulk Create will attract creative teams and agencies that are already investing in Adobe's custom models, said Liz Miller, an analyst at Constellation Research.
Many teams and agencies are looking for tools that can help accelerate their creative processes, she said
What stands out here is how practical this AI approach is
Liz MillerAnalyst, Constellation Research
"[It] gets the idea out of a creative mind and into exploration and iteration faster," she said. "Tools like Bulk Create get assets from early creation into bulk iteration and application."
"What stands out here is how practical this AI approach is," Miller continued. Adobe considered the challenges faced by retail workers in e-commerce and marketing in launching a product as well as applying budgets and time to prepare a full suite of assets from images on a carousel or address the size and formats of ads.
"Bulk Create addresses the reality of the work and workflow of not just creatives, marketers or advertisers but also of businesses," she said.
A tough market
While Bulk Create will be beneficial for those looking for scale, it might be challenging for Adobe to appeal to medium-sized retailers, said Futurum Group analyst Keith Kirkpatrick.
While larger retailers are comfortable with licensing agreements for Firefly services to use these generative AI features, smaller retailers may not feel the same way.
"The question is, is this enough value to perhaps smaller retailers who may have never considered doing this?" Kirkpatrick said.
Medium or smaller-sized retailers may prefer to go with one of Adobe's competitors, like Canva to create the marketing products they need, instead of paying for a licensing agreement.
However, those that choose a competitor will also risk not having a commercially safe product because of Adobe's intellectual property and copyright protections, Kirkpatrick added.
"In the end, it really does come down to what level of risk an organization is willing to take, and maybe for small companies, they don't care as much," he said.
Customers' choices will also center around cost, convenience, safety and brand continuity, Miller said.
Another challenge for Adobe is concentrating on its AI strategy, especially as the market becomes saturated with other AI and agentic services for retailers, Miller continued.
"The challenge will be staying focused on what their AI strategy and mission, which has been to bring AI and these tools directly into the hands of the creatives and creators in a way that is safe and ready to use in a commercial environment," she said.
There is also a question of openness, said Gartner analyst Andrew Frank.
"One of the questions that has been coming up is people want to reveal how AI is being used in their content creation to consumers, so that they can be transparent about it," Stark said.
"The more subtly AI is used to combine things and to do other things, other than just simply generate an image, the more complicated it becomes to explain what the role of AI was in the content creation process," he continued.
Adobe also expanded its suite of APIs within Firefly Services. New APIs include the Avatar API, which lets brands create digital human avatars for video content. The Dubbing and Lip Sync API enables teams to translate spoken dialogue into different languages.
Adobe also introduced new governance capabilities that provide permissions-based sharing and enhanced controls for model training, review and access.
Esther Shittu is an Informa TechTarget news writer and podcast host covering artificial intelligence software and systems.
