Adobe’s Firefly AI has generated 24 billion images – make that 24 billion and one…

Adobe Firefly has reached an impressive milestone: over 24 billion assets have been generated since its release in March 2023. To put that into perspective, 24 billion equates to 24,000 million. You’d reach roughly the same statistic if every single person in the entire world used Adobe Firefly to generate three assets.

But what’s even more impressive is that Adobe announced it reached the 22-billion milestone just a few weeks ago, on April 24. And with today’s launch of the Adobe Firefly mobile app, not to mention a raft of Firefly improvements and the addition of more third-party AI-model partners, I can only assume the next two billion assets will be churned out even faster.

So, I thought I’d fire up Firefly and generate an image for this article. My concerns regarding AI-generated content are well documented, but it’s here to stay, and I do think Adobe is taking the right approach. First and foremost, Adobe is one of several large companies, including Google and Microsoft, that have thrown their weight behind Content Credentials. This acts a bit like EXIF data – a digital fingerprint if you will – that travels with a file to authenticate its origins.

To that end, Adobe attaches Content Credentials automatically to Firefly assets, which is a big step in the right direction as far as I’m concerned. Adobe also states the following: “Regardless of which model creators choose to use within Adobe products, the content they generate and upload in Adobe’s apps will never be used to train generative AI models (...) and it is a requirement in all of Adobe’s partnership agreements.”

In my mind, if there’s no getting away from generative AI, I’d rather support the companies that are taking a more ethical approach than allow those that do not to gain ground. I once said that in this new world of AI, photography will live and die by how transparent we photographers choose to be about the images we create, but it’s also up to AI image generators to be transparent, too. And in that respect, Adobe, I salute you.

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