Adobe previews its upcoming generative text-to-video AI tools

Adobe has unveiled some of its upcoming AI generative video tools, including a new feature that can create video clips from still images. This latest preview builds on the in-development Firefly video model the software giant unveiled in April, which is designed to power AI video and audio editing features in Adobe's Creative Cloud applications.

The new promotional teaser shows footage created using Firefly's text-to-video capabilities, which Adobe announced (but did not demo) earlier this year. The tool lets users create video clips using text descriptions and adjust the results using various “camera controls” that simulate camera angles, movement, and shooting distance. An image-to-video feature was also demoed for the Firefly video model, which allows clips to be created using specific reference images. Adobe suggests this could be useful for creating additional B-roll footage or filling gaps in production schedules.

If the sample footage is any indication of the final version, the generated video quality looks comparable to what we've seen so far from OpenAI's Sora model, which Adobe is also “exploring” as a third-party integration for its Premiere Pro video software. However, it will be limited in duration, as Alexandru Costin, vice president of generative AI at Adobe, told The edge that videos created using the text-to-video and image-to-video features have a maximum length of five seconds.

One advantage Adobe's own model may have over Sora is the promise that Firefly is “commercially safe” because it was trained with openly licensed, public domain and Adobe Stock content, which could allay some concerns about copyright infringement.

The text-to-video and image-to-video features will both be available initially as a standalone Firefly application in beta later this year. Adobe says the new Firefly video model will eventually be integrated into its Creative Cloud, Experience Cloud and Adobe Express applications.

The company also showed some additional clips of the upcoming Generative Extend feature for Premiere Pro, which will allow you to extend the length of existing video footage, similar to Photoshop's Generative Expand tool for image backgrounds. Adobe says this feature, too, will be available at an unspecified time “later this year.”