Traditionally, at our conferences Adobe MAX 2025 culminated with what became known as “Sneaks,” a highly anticipated interactive evening presentation designed to showcase what was coming next (or what could be next).
Think of them as passion projects conceived internally in response to customer requests and emerging trends that can turn experimental features into Adobepipeline.
This year in Los Angeles, critically acclaimed comedian, writer and actress Jessica Williams took the stage with Adobe Creative Cloud Senior Evangelist Paul Trani for a session that included 10 separate “disruptions” demonstrated by their creators.
Although the company emphasized that not all of them will make it to production, we think they will be able to do so. Not only did the crowd go crazy for every Sneak, but given that apparently hundreds of new AI-powered features have already launched on the MAX 2025, we think there's room for more in the coming years.
We've listed some of our favorites below:
Project Light Touch
Have you ever taken a photo and returned to the studio (or perhaps just the editor on the phone) to realize that maybe the lighting wasn't quite right?
This tool allows users to change the shape of light sources after they've been captured, be it moving the light source to cast different shadows, turning day into night, or even adding a new light source to any part of the image (like lighting up a Halloween pumpkin from the inside).
Erase a project trace
“Say goodbye to clunky object deletion,” Adobe writes in its summary. blog post. This tool solves one of the most common Photoshop actions – cleaning photos.
In the demo, the new trail erase tool uses diffusion transform models to erase elements associated with the selected object, such as shadows, reflections, and environmental distortions, rather than just the main object in question.
Project frame forward
For video, Project Frame Forward eliminates the need to process every frame when editing video, making it easier and faster to make changes to an entire clip.
Users can annotate and edit a single frame, and this tool, currently in development, will carry over those changes to each corresponding frame. Need to remove an unnecessary object from the frame? Simply make changes to one frame and those changes will be applied to the entire clip. Adobe boasts that the original quality is preserved.
Project “Clean Take”
Next up is an audio-focused tool that does everything you want it to do—powered by AI, of course. Podcasters and filmmakers will be able to use this tool to make all kinds of changes to soundtracks without re-recording.
In addition to isolating voices and removing background noise, Clean Take can also correct mispronunciation. Editors can even review the transcript and replace words that will then sound as if they were spoken by the original speaker.
Special Mention: Scene It Project.
The scene deserves a special mention, allowing marketers to create 3D versions of products from a single image and place them in different scenes for promotional activities.
But the best part came at the end of the mini-presentation, when presenter and project director Oindrila Saha brought the illustrated glass of champagne to life, bringing three glasses onto the stage to share with Jessica and Paul.
Little did Oindrila know, those glasses of champagne were part of a larger plan to celebrate what came next—her offer of a full-time position at Adobe after she joined as a research intern this summer.
While not everyone may qualify, the Adobe Sneaks session was always more than just a hint of what might be next. It's all about giving dreamers and creative people a chance to be heard.
“What starts out as a bold experiment in Sneaks often becomes the creative superpower of tomorrow,” Adobe concluded. “We can’t wait to see where these ideas go next.”
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