The Design + AI Summit 2026

AI is moving at light speed, expectations are rising, and the pressure to “keep up” is real. With constant launches, shifting capabilities, and loud marketing claims, it’s increasingly difficult to find the needle in the haystack of hype.

This session helps you focus on what matters right now. It establishes shared language and core concepts. It clarifies where AI is delivering real value, where caution is warranted, and how creative roles are changing as a result.

You’ll leave feeling oriented, with a clearer understanding of today’s AI ecosystem, essential terminology, and ethical considerations.

You will learn:

• Which AI tools matter right now
• The AI terms every creative should know
• Which trends are worth watching and which aren’t
• How to think about ethics in everyday AI use

Adobe’s generative credits confuse even experienced Creative Cloud users. This session explains how credits work across Firefly features and partner models, and why some actions use far more credits than others. You’ll see practical demonstrations that show how to manage usage, avoid unnecessary consumption, and stay productive throughout the month. You’ll also learn how to choose the plan that fits your workload and budget so you can work confidently without hitting unexpected limits.

What you will learn:

• How Adobe’s generative credits work across Firefly and partner models
• Identify which actions and features consume credits the fastest
• Smarter workflows to reduce credit usage and avoid surprises
• Know when and why to use each Adobe app or tool for image generation
• Choose the right Adobe plan for your workload and budget

PROJECT-BASED SESSION

Unlock faster workflows and deliver higher-quality results with Photoshop’s most up-to-date AI tools. This session shows you how to bring AI into your everyday production work, using features that boost speed, improve accuracy, and streamline complex tasks. Learn how to accelerate selections, clean up images, refine retouching, correct color with precision, and build polished composites with confidence. You’ll leave knowing how to apply these tools directly to your commercial projects, so you can work smarter and produce consistent, professional results.

Topics include:

• AI-powered selections and masking
• Retouching and cleanup with generative tools
• AI-assisted color correction and color matching
• Background extension and scene rebuilding
• Compositing workflows supported by AI

How much time do you lose to the same repetitive tasks in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign? Learn how AI can automate those tasks for you! This session shows you how to use AI to generate scripts, build Actions, and create automated workflows that speed up production. You’ll see how tools like the MATE plug-in turn plain-language prompts into real automation inside your Adobe apps. Learn how to eliminate tedious steps, streamline your process, and work faster with custom AI-powered solutions you can build yourself.

Key takeaways:

• Use AI to write custom scripts and actions for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign
• Create custom UI panels with MATE to run complex workflows inside InDesign
• Automate repetitive tasks such as resizing, renaming, and exporting with AI
• Generate color themes and swatches automatically with AI

Every piece of creative work now raises the same question: Where did this come from, and can it be trusted? As AI-generated content becomes part of everyday workflows, designers and content creators are increasingly expected to provide clarity and transparency around the work they share.

Learn about the Content Authenticity Initiative, the Adobe-led, industry-wide effort to build trust in digital content through open-source Content Credentials developed by the C2PA. Discover how Content Credentials work like a digital nutrition label, showing the origin and history of creative assets. The session explains why Content Credentials matter, how they help protect creators, clients, and brands, and where they fit into modern creative workflows. You'll leave with a clearer picture of how Content Credentials fit into today’s creative landscape and how they are likely to shape your future workflows.

Topics include:

• The Content Authenticity Initiative: Why it exists, and how it seeks to build trust in digital content
• Where Content Credentials are already in use across tools, platforms, and media organizations
• How Content Credentials can flow from capture through publishing in real creative workflows
• How Content Credentials are added to Photoshop composites and carried through export
• Understand what creators can control today and what’s coming next

AI is now embedded in everyday design workflows, influencing decisions that directly impact inclusion and accessibility. But while AI can accelerate design tasks, it cannot replace human judgment.

This session reframes AI not as artificial intelligence, but as augmented inclusion. You’ll see how AI can support more inclusive design decisions without requiring designers to become accessibility experts or overhaul their existing workflows.

Through practical, real-world examples, the session explores how AI can assist with tasks such as generating and refining image descriptions, proposing contrast-safe color pairs, and clarifying written content. Just as importantly, it highlights where AI support falls short, why inclusion cannot be automated away, and the risks designers need to watch for when relying on AI-generated output.

You'll leave with a clear, realistic understanding of where AI adds value in inclusive design workflows, where it introduces risk, and how to apply human judgment to ensure responsible outcomes.

Key takeaways:

• Use AI to generate and refine alt text in tools like Adobe InDesign, knowing when to edit, replace, or mark images as decorative
• Apply AI-suggested color combinations to support contrast goals, then validate and adjust them in real design layouts
• Understand what AI-based accessibility and quality checks actually evaluate, particularly for documents and PDFs
• Recognize common AI failure patterns in inclusive design work, including generic descriptions, missed intent, and false confidence in automated results

AI has quickly become part of everyday creative work, raising big questions about originality, authorship, and the role of human craft. In this session, Michael Flarup takes a clear-eyed look at what AI actually changes—and what it doesn’t. Drawing from real client and personal projects, he shows how AI can support ideation, exploration, and rapid experimentation without replacing creative judgment. You’ll see how AI outputs become starting points, not finished answers, and how tools like Photoshop help shape rough generations into intentional, personal work. This session offers a practical, designer-centered perspective on using AI as a creative partner while keeping authorship firmly human.

You will learn how to:

• Integrate AI into early ideation without surrendering creative direction
• Turn AI-generated outputs into usable starting points rather than finished work
• Make clear, intentional decisions about when to accept, refine, or reject AI results
• Apply human judgment to shape AI-assisted work into cohesive, personal outcomes
• Build a repeatable workflow that uses AI to accelerate exploration while preserving authorship

How far can AI really go with vector art, and where does it fit in a professional workflow? Explore AI tools that can generate true, editable vectors today. Learn where they shine for fast ideation, flat illustration, icon design, and high-quality vectorization. Understand the current limitations so you know when AI is helpful and when traditional tools still deliver better results. See how emerging features like Illustrator’s Turntable are expanding what’s possible with vector-based design. You'll leave with a clear, grounded view of the vector landscape and practical ways to bring AI into your process with confidence.

Key takeaways:

• Explore AI tools that generate true, editable vectors, including Illustrator’s generative features, Kittl, and Illustroke for Figma
• Convert raster images into clean vectors using AI-powered tools like Vectorizer.ai
• Identify when AI vector generation works well and when traditional tools offer better results
• Understand how emerging features like Illustrator’s Turntable may shape future vector workflows
• Bring AI into your vector process with practical, repeatable workflows

Adobe’s AI tools are powerful on their own, but their real value shows up when you stop using them in isolation. This session focuses on how Adobe’s AI features work together across apps to support real creative workflows.

See practical, cross-application techniques using Firefly Boards, Firefly, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Express. Follow how ideas move from early exploration to usable assets and finished layouts, with an emphasis on handoffs, decision points, and repeatable patterns that make AI feel integrated instead of fragmented.

This is a workflow-driven session. You’ll leave with clear, practical ways to connect ideas, assets, and layouts into faster, more cohesive Adobe workflows.

What you will learn:

• Use Firefly Boards to align ideas before moving into production
• Move AI-generated assets smoothly between Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Express
• Identify smart handoff points where AI saves time without disrupting creative control
• Apply repeatable cross-app patterns that speed up real-world design workflows

PROJECT-BASED SESSION

See how AI can support everyday layout work in Adobe InDesign. This session demonstrates an AI-assisted workflow for building and refining a layout. Follow along with supplied files as you explore how AI can help with layout planning, content generation, color decisions, accessibility, and production tasks inside InDesign. You’ll also see how InDesign’s new AI-generated alt text feature fits into real-world workflows, making accessibility easier to address as part of the design process.

Leave with practical ideas, a clearer mental model for using AI in InDesign, and realistic ways to integrate these tools into your existing workflow.

Topics include:

• Generating layout ideas and content with AI
• Applying styles, colors, and formatting with AI-assisted tools
• Using AI to generate alt text
• Preparing and exporting files with AI-supported workflows

Imagine your entire team ideating with AI in the same space, at the same time. Firefly Boards makes this possible. This session shows you how to use its real-time, web-based canvas to spark ideas, explore directions, and shape early concepts as a group. Work with stock images or import your own Photoshop and Illustrator files. Generate new images and video too. Arrange everything on shareable artboards. Learn how to guide AI, organize your exploration, and keep everyone aligned as ideas evolve. See how Firefly Boards can accelerate concept development, support collaborative decision-making, and define a clear visual direction before moving into production.

What you will learn:

• Explore visual ideas collaboratively using Firefly Boards
• Work with stock images, Photoshop files, and Illustrator files in one space
• Generate new images and video to support early concepts
• Organize and refine ideas using flexible, shareable artboards
• Guide AI to stay focused and aligned with your project direction

You don’t need traditional editing skills to create video that tells a clear story and supports your marketing goals. In this session, Stacey Kelly walks through a strategy-first approach to creating short, social-ready videos with GenAI. You’ll start by crafting a strong prompt for a still image, then build that image into a simple visual narrative designed for motion. Stacey will demonstrate a complete project from start to finish, showing how intentional prompts, sequencing, and pacing can turn static visuals into purposeful video content. You’ll leave with a repeatable process for adding story-driven motion to your creative workflow—no prior video experience required.

What you will learn:

• Write effective prompts for generating still images that support a story
• Plan short, social-ready video content with intention and clarity
• Apply a repeatable, strategy-driven workflow for future projects

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

AI tools in Photoshop look impressive in demos. Production work is a different story. In this session, Lisa Carney shows how she is using Photoshop AI right now in professional retouching and compositing workflows. These are real files. Real deadlines. Real client expectations. The work needs to hold up for screen, print, and ongoing revisions.

Lisa walks through practical, client-style scenarios drawn from high-end retouching work. She shows where AI genuinely saves time. She also shows where it falls short. You’ll see how and when to step in with traditional retouching skills to finish the job cleanly and confidently.

This session focuses on production-ready workflows. Not demo-pretty results. You’ll leave with a clear understanding of what Photoshop AI is good at today, what still requires human judgment, and how professionals are combining both to deliver reliable results.

You will learn how to:

• Speed up cleanup, selections, and background extensions with AI tools that actually hold up.
• Recognize where AI results break down and how to refine them manually.
• Manage resolution and quality for files headed to screen and print.
• See how high-end retouching decisions translate to demanding, client-driven work.

AI is very good at writing text that sounds like writing. That doesn’t mean it’s good.

If AI wrote this description, it might urge you to “unleash your inner writer,” “supercharge your text,” or some such nonsense. But this isn’t AI—I promise. It’s me, Sara, a longtime copywriter who wants to share some solid writing tips with you so you can build your very own sentences from scratch. Or, if needed, wash the smell from your AI text.

The goal isn’t to swear off AI. It’s to stop letting it do your thinking.

You’ll leave better at spotting bad writing, more confident in editing AI output, and more comfortable trusting your own words.

Key takeaways:

•    Fire up your empathy and connect with your reader
•    Stop prompting and start persuading 
•    Use your humanness to your advantage

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

Turn ideas into finished campaigns faster with Adobe Express’s AI Assistant. This session explores how Express’s rapidly evolving AI Assistant can help you plan, build, and deliver cohesive campaigns faster than ever. Through practical, real-world demos, you’ll see how AI supports idea generation, streamlines everyday creative tasks, and helps you produce more assets with less effort—while keeping your design voice intact. Walk away with a clear understanding of what’s possible now, what’s emerging, and how to use the Express AI Assistant to work smarter at every stage of your content creation process.

You will learn how to

• Use AI-assisted layout, alignment, and spacing to reach usable layouts faster
• Apply color, text styling, and animations quickly to test visual direction early
• Modify images and replace objects without rebuilding designs from scratch
• Generate and refine on-brand text directly inside design workflows
• Use Adobe Express’s AI Assistant to move campaigns from concept to deliverables faster

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.

How much of your day disappears into tedious tasks instead of the creative work you love doing? This session shows how AI can take on those repetitive jobs so you can focus on what matters most. You’ll learn practical ways to streamline file cleanup, organization, and everyday production tasks by building your own custom app or agent. You’ll see demos that walk through the process using tools like n8n. These tools give you flexible options to automate the mundane parts of your workflow and support a smoother, more creative workday.

Topics include:

• Building simple AI-powered apps for custom creative workflow solutions
• Automating tedious tasks through independent agents and robust apps
• Streamlining everyday production tasks with agentic workflows

Session title subject to change. Session description coming soon.