Adobe MAX 2026: Every AI Feature for Photoshop, Lightroom, Firefly

Adobe MAX 2026 ran from 10 to 12 November in Miami Beach and online, and almost every announcement was about AI.

Photoshop can now add new lights to a finished photo, Lightroom can open closed eyes, Premiere can erase a boom mic from moving video, and Firefly became a full creative studio with an AI agent that plans and runs multi-step jobs.

Adobe also previewed a local MCP connection, which will let outside agents such as Claude or ChatGPT work directly inside Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and After Effects files from early 2027.

This guide lists every AI feature announced at MAX 2026, app by app, with what is available now, what is in beta, what costs credits, and how to try each one today.

TL;DR

Photoshop: Relight adds movable light sources, Generative Restyle turns a prompt into a layer with a strength slider, and Remove now erases shadows, reflections and smoke with the object.
Lightroom: Open Eyes (public beta) fixes blinks using another photo of the same person, plus Glow and Blemish Removal.
Premiere: Color Mode is generally available; Generative Remove (beta) erases objects from video; a Generative Media tool makes video, sound effects and music in the timeline.
Firefly: Firefly Design and Firefly Graph are in beta, Firefly Builder is in private beta, and the AI Assistant gains Plan Mode and a model selector.
Coming in 2027: local MCP access for third-party agents (early 2027) and always-on background agents (beta early 2027).
Prices: no plan price changes were announced. Generative features still use generative credits.

Every Announcement at a Glance

Here is the full list from Adobe’s MAX blog post and launch coverage, with the status Adobe gave on 10 November 2026. “Announced” means Adobe showed the feature without saying whether it is final or beta.

App	Feature	Status
Photoshop	Relight	Announced; check your app version
Photoshop	Generative Restyle	Announced
Photoshop	Remove Tool with related elements	Announced (in beta since October)
Photoshop	Quick Compare, AI Assisted Editor updates	Announced
Photoshop (beta app)	Mockups, Camera Angles, Generative Recompose, Convert to Text Layers, Timelapse, Remove Ambient Effect Only	Beta
Lightroom	Open Eyes	Public beta
Lightroom	Glow, Blemish Removal, expanded Camera Tethering	Announced
Premiere	Color Mode	Generally available
Premiere	Generative Remove	Beta
Premiere	Generative Media (video, sound effects, soundscape, music)	Announced
Premiere	Enhance Audio, Separate Crosstalk, Separate Sound Source	Announced
Illustrator	Refreshed libraries, on-canvas Blend controls	Announced
InDesign	Co-editing	Public beta
InDesign	Flex Layout, Check Document, Rewrite	Announced
Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Frame.io	AI Assistant	Beta
Firefly	Firefly Design, Firefly Graph	Beta
Firefly	Firefly Builder	Private beta (waitlist)
Firefly	Edit Text, Retouch, Relight, Quick Actions gallery	Generally available
Firefly	Always-on agents	Preview; beta planned early 2027
Creative Cloud	Local MCP for third-party agents	Preview; early 2027

Photoshop: Relight, Generative Restyle and Smarter Remove

Relight

Relight adds new light sources to a photo that blend into the scene. You can move each light and change its colour and brightness, and the original pixels stay untouched, so you can always go back.

This is the feature compositors have wanted for years. When you drop a person shot in a studio into an outdoor background, Relight lets you match the direction and colour of the light instead of painting it by hand.

Generative Restyle

Generative Restyle turns a typed edit, such as “make it look like a rainy evening”, into its own layer with a slider. You drag the slider to make the effect stronger or weaker without writing a new prompt or generating again.

Remove with related elements

The Remove Tool now finds the shadows, reflections, splashes and smoke that belong to an object and erases them together. Reviewers also saw it catch ripples in water, dust and fog.

If the erased area looks softer than the rest of the photo, put the result on its own layer and add a layer mask so only the removed area uses the new pixels.

New in the Photoshop beta app

Mockups: place a design onto product shots.
Camera Angles: generate the same subject from a different viewpoint.
Generative Recompose: rearrange the layout of an image.
Convert to Text Layers: turn text in an image into editable type.
Timelapse and Remove Ambient Effect Only.

Photoshop’s chat-style editing mode also got updates. My Photoshop AI features guide covers Generative Fill, Harmonize and the AI Assisted Editor in detail.

Lightroom: Open Eyes, Glow and Blemish Removal

Open Eyes is the headline Lightroom feature and is in public beta. It fixes a blink by borrowing the eyes from another photo of the same person in your library. You can pick the reference photo yourself or let Lightroom find one.

Because it uses a real photo of the same person, the result should look far more natural than a fully generated eye. Group photographers will love it.

Glow: a new Lightroom effect announced at MAX.
Blemish Removal: previously on mobile, now across Lightroom.
Camera Tethering: improved and expanded on Lightroom desktop and iPad.
Detect and remove: painting over an object now also selects its shadow and reflection, per the version 10.0 release notes.

For every AI tool already in Lightroom, see my Lightroom AI features guide.

Premiere: Color Mode, Generative Remove and Generative Media

Feature	What it does	Status
Color Mode	A full colour-grading workspace for editors	Generally available
Generative Remove	Mask and track an object, click Remove, and Premiere fills the gap in every frame	Beta
Generative Media	Creates video, sound effects, soundscapes and music in the timeline using your edit as context	Announced
Separate Sound Source	Splits audio into dialogue, music, ambience and effects	Announced
Separate Crosstalk	Puts overlapping speakers on their own tracks	Announced
AI Assistant	Runs multi-step edits from a text request, such as applying an effect to every clip	Beta

The Generative Media tool lets you pick Adobe Firefly models or partner models from Google, Kling, Runway and Luma.

Coverage of Generative Remove lists limits of 480p to 1080p, no HDR, up to 30 fps and 10 seconds per clip, with processing in the cloud. An Adobe team member put the cost at about 40 generative credits per second, so a 10-second clip is about 400 credits. Treat these as beta numbers that may change.

My Premiere Pro AI features guide explains Generative Extend, Media Intelligence and the other AI tools already in Premiere.

Firefly: Design, Graph, Builder and the Creative Agent

Firefly is now much more than an image generator. Adobe calls the new areas creation spaces.

Space	What it does	Status
Firefly Design	One canvas for raster, vector, motion, 3D and print, from first idea to client review and export	Beta
Firefly Graph	Builds repeatable multi-step workflows that chain AI models and Adobe tools, such as applying brand guidelines across a campaign	Beta
Firefly Builder	Turns a text description into an interactive prototype of a website, presentation or app	Private beta (waitlist)
Quick Actions gallery	Ready-made workflows like Remove Object, Thumbnail Generator and Build Product Ad, on web and mobile	Generally available
Edit Text, Retouch, Relight	Change one part of an image and leave the rest alone	Generally available

What’s new in the Firefly AI Assistant

Plan Mode: shows the agent’s plan before it runs, so you can edit or approve each step, or let it run on its own.
Model selector: fix one model for a session or let Auto-Select pick the best model for each output.
Saved preferences: formats, colours, brand guidelines, characters and products carry across projects.
Firefly Boards: the assistant now works inside the mood board and storyboard space.

Always-on agents were previewed for background work such as organising assets, checking quality and preparing content for different channels. Adobe plans a beta in early 2027, so nobody can use them yet.

AI Assistant in Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects and Frame.io

The AI Assistant, in beta, now reaches Adobe’s main desktop apps: Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects and Frame.io. You describe a task, it plans the steps, and you review the result.

Illustrator: refreshed brushes, graphic styles, patterns and gradients, plus on-canvas Blend controls.
InDesign: real-time co-editing in public beta, Flex Layout, Check Document and an AI Rewrite tool.
After Effects and Frame.io: the assistant is the main new AI feature announced.

New Partner Models and Topaz Labs Tools

Firefly keeps adding outside models next to Adobe’s own. These were highlighted at MAX:

Model	Company	Type
Dreamina Seedance 2.5	ByteDance	Video
Kling 4.0	Kling	Video
GPT Image 2.6 Sunburst and Flare	OpenAI	Image
Nano Banana 2.1	Google	Image
Wonder 4	Topaz Labs	Upscaling and denoising
Image HDR	Topaz Labs	Turns a normal photo into HDR

Wonder 4 and Image HDR come from Adobe’s recent purchase of Topaz Labs, which is well known for its upscaling tools.

Adobe MCP: Claude and ChatGPT Inside Creative Cloud

The most interesting preview for AI users is Adobe’s local MCP integration. MCP (Model Context Protocol) is the standard that lets AI assistants call tools in other apps.

Adobe’s version runs on your own computer, so an outside agent can work inside native Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and After Effects files. Layers, vectors, bins and sequences stay fully editable, which is very different from getting back a flat image.

Key point: the MCP integration is a preview. Adobe says it arrives for Creative Cloud customers in early 2027, and it hasn’t confirmed which agents will be officially supported. Coverage names Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini as examples.

Adobe’s examples include removing a logo from many campaign files at once, or pulling a brief from Google Drive and sending the finished assets through Slack. Adobe VP Deepa Subramaniam said the company has no wish to limit what the MCP can reach, but is still deciding where to draw the line.

If you want to try MCP today with other tools, my best MCP servers guide and Claude Code MCP setup guide are good starting points. Read MCP security best practices before you give any agent access to client files.

Google, Microsoft and Disney Partnerships

Google: Acrobat in Google Workspace, Gemini connectors for Acrobat and Adobe’s creative tools, Adobe tools in Google Search AI Mode, and Gemini models powering Acrobat AI features.
Microsoft: Photoshop, Premiere and After Effects tuned for Arm-based Windows PCs, Substance 3D Painter in beta on Arm, and Adobe Express inside Microsoft Photos.
Disney: a multi-year deal making Adobe an Official AI Innovation Partner for concept work in Disney’s innovation labs, parks and cruise development.

The Arm news matters if you are shopping for a Copilot+ laptop. My NPU and AI PC explainer covers what those chips do.

Pricing and Generative Credits

Question	Answer
Did Creative Cloud or Firefly prices change?	No price changes were announced at MAX
Do the new features use credits?	Generative features do; partner models cost more credits than Adobe’s own, depending on model and resolution
Unlimited generations offer	Adobe’s help page (27 October 2026) lists unlimited generations on select models for up to a year on Firefly Pro, Pro Plus, Premium and the larger credit plans; not Teams or Enterprise
Are the MAX models in that offer?	Not confirmed; the offer’s model list predates MAX
Generative Remove in Premiere	About 40 credits per second in beta, per an Adobe team reply

My Adobe Firefly pricing and free credits guide breaks down every plan and how many credits each action uses.

How to Try the New Features Today

Open the Creative Cloud desktop app and update Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, Illustrator and InDesign to the latest versions.
For Photoshop beta features such as Mockups and Camera Angles, go to Beta apps in the Creative Cloud app and install Photoshop (Beta).
For Firefly Design, Graph and the AI Assistant, sign in at firefly.adobe.com and look for the new spaces.
For Firefly Builder, join the waitlist on Adobe’s Firefly page, since it is invite-only.
For the MCP integration, use the sign-up form linked from Adobe’s MAX blog post to get updates before the early 2027 launch.

Features roll out gradually and some are limited by region or plan. If you can’t find one after updating, give it a few days before assuming it isn’t included in your plan.

Troubleshooting

I don’t see Relight or Generative Restyle in Photoshop

Update Photoshop in the Creative Cloud app and restart it. If the feature still isn’t there, check Photoshop (Beta), since Adobe often tests features there first.

Open Eyes doesn’t work on my photo

It needs another photo of the same person with open eyes in your library. Add a clear reference photo or pick one by hand.

Generative Remove in Premiere is greyed out

Check that the clip is 1080p or lower, SDR, 30 fps or less and no longer than 10 seconds, and that you have generative credits left.

I ran out of generative credits

Partner models use more credits than Adobe’s own. Switch to a Firefly model for drafts, or check your plan’s credit balance in your Adobe account.

The AI Assistant is missing from Illustrator or InDesign

It is a beta. Update the app, and on a business account ask your admin whether generative AI and beta features are enabled.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was Adobe MAX 2026?

Adobe MAX 2026 ran from 10 to 12 November 2026 in Miami Beach and online, with the main announcements on 10 November.

What is Photoshop Relight?

Relight adds new light sources to a photo that blend into the scene. You can move them and change their colour and brightness while the original image stays untouched.

What does Lightroom Open Eyes do?

Open Eyes, in public beta, fixes a blink by using another photo of the same person from your library as a reference.

Is the Adobe MCP available now?

No. It was previewed at MAX and Adobe says it comes to Creative Cloud customers in early 2027. It will let outside AI agents work inside Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere and After Effects files.

Did Adobe raise Creative Cloud prices at MAX 2026?

No price changes were announced. Generative features still use generative credits from your plan.

What is Firefly Builder?

Firefly Builder turns a text description into an interactive prototype of a website, presentation or app. It is in private beta with a waitlist.

Can I use Google or OpenAI models inside Adobe apps?

Yes. Firefly and Premiere’s Generative Media tool offer partner models from Google, OpenAI, Kling, ByteDance, Runway and Luma, alongside Adobe’s own Firefly models. Partner models usually cost more credits.

Final Thoughts

For photographers, Relight and Open Eyes are the two features I’d try first, because they fix problems that used to take real retouching skill. For video editors, Generative Remove is impressive but still a short-clip beta with a real credit cost.

The bigger story is where Adobe is heading: agents that plan multi-step jobs inside Firefly now, and outside agents like Claude working in your real project files from 2027. I’ll update this guide as features leave beta and the MCP launches.

Adobe MAX 2026: Every AI Feature Announced for Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere and Firefly

Every Announcement at a Glance