Anyone who’s used an AI image or video generator knows that these tools are often the opposite of precise. If you’re using an AI generator with a specific idea in mind, you’ll likely need to do a lot of work to bring that vision to life.
Adobe’s convinced that it can make its AI hub, Firefly, a place where AI can be customized and precise, which is what the company aims for with the release of new AI video editing tools on Tuesday.
Over the course of 2025, Adobe has quietly emerged as one of the best places to use generative AI tools. Firefly subscriptions starting at $10 a month, making it an affordable program that provides integration with top models from Google, OpenAI, Runway, Luma and several other leading AI companies. It’s expanding its roster with Topaz Labs’ Astra (available in Firefly Boards) and Flux 2.1 from Black Forest Labs, available in Firefly and Photoshop desktop.
The partnerships are helping to make Firefly an all-in-one hub for creators to leverage AI, said Steve Newcomb, vice president of product for Firefly, in an exclusive interview. Just as Photoshop is the «career partner» of photographers, Firefly aims to become a partner for AI video and image creators.
«If you’re a photographer, [Photoshop] has everything that you could ever want. It has all the tooling, all the plugins, in one spot with one subscription. You don’t have to subscribe to 25 different photo things,» Newcomb said. «So for us, Firefly, our philosophy is, how do we be that home?»
One way is through partnerships with AI companies, similar to Photoshop plug-ins. Precise editing tools are another, he said.
That’s why Adobe is trying to make it easier to edit AI-generated content. Hallucinations are common in AI-generated images and videos, such as disappearing and reappearing objects, weird blurs and other inaccuracies. For professional creators who use Adobe, the inability to edit out hallucinations makes AI almost unusable for final projects.
In my own testing, I’ve often found that editing tools are basic, at best. At worst, they’re entirely absent, particularly for newer AI video technologies. Firefly’s new prompt-based editing for AI videos, announced on Tuesday, is a way to get that hands-on control.
If you’ve edited images in Firefly via prompting, the video setup will feel familiar. Even if you haven’t, prompt-based editing is essentially a fancy term for asking AI to modify things as you would when talking with a chatbot. Google’s nano banana pro in Gemini is one example of an AI tool that allows you to edit through prompts.
Firefly’s video prompt editing has the added bonus of allowing you to switch between models for edits: You can generate with Firefly and edit with Runway’s Aleph, for example.
Like with any AI chatbot or tool, prompt-based editing isn’t always accurate. But it’s a nice option without having to leave Firefly for Premiere Pro.
The plan is to go beyond just prompt-based editing, Newcomb said. More AI-based precision editing tools for Firefly will be important, allowing you to make even more minute changes. What makes it possible is something called layer-based editing, a behind-the-scenes technology that enables easier, detailed changes in AI-generated images and videos.
Adobe plans to implement layer-based editing in the future, which will likely form the foundation for future AI video editing tools. The goal is to make it easier to stay working in Firefly «until the last mile» of editing, Newcomb said.
«We can run the gamut of the precision continuum all the way to the end, and just think of prompting as being one of many tools. But it is absolutely not the only tool,» said Newcomb.
For now, there is another piece of video editing news that could help you build more precise AI videos.
AI video editing without Premiere Pro expertise
Adobe is also bringing its full AI video editor into beta on Tuesday, the next step toward making editable and, therefore, usable AI video.
Debuted at the company’s annual Max conference in October, the video editor is now launching in a public beta. It sits between basic video editors and the feature-stuffed Premiere Pro. It’ll be great for AI enthusiasts who want more editing firepower than you get with OpenAI or Google, without needing expertise in Premiere Pro.
The video editor is meant to help you put all the pieces of your project together in one place. It has a multitrack timeline for you to compile all your clips and audio tracks. That’s especially important because, while you can create your own AI speech and soundtracks, Firefly AI videoes don’t natively generate with sound. (You can use Veo 3 or Sora 2 in Firefly to generate those initial clips with audio, though.) You can also export in a variety of aspect ratios.
«Think of the video editor as being one of our cornerstone releases that is helping us move toward being one place, one home, where you can have one subscription and get to every model you ever needed to get the job done,» Newcomb said.
