Adobe previews 10 creative AI research projects at MAX 2026 Sneaks

Adobe previewed 10 research projects at Adobe MAX 2026 Sneaks, its annual public window into work that may later shape commercial creative software. Four of the ten target video, five target imaging and design, and one targets audio. For the first time in this format's spirit, selected previews — including Project Deep Brush and Project Hands On — are also available for hands-on testing through the new Adobe Labs Playground, rather than remaining stage-only demonstrations.

The stakes are straightforward. Adobe's Sneaks presentations have long signaled where the company believes creative work still carries friction: repeating edits across shots, isolating audio from finished mixes, transferring image adjustments between regions, and making design changes directly on the canvas. This year's batch points at those pain points explicitly, and the expanded Labs channel gives Adobe a structured way to collect feedback from professionals and hobbyists as it decides which experiments become features.

What did Adobe show for video?

Four of the ten previews addressed video creation and editing, the largest single category.

Project Scene Sweep targets editors working across multiple shots in a sequence. The system identifies characters, locations and scenes so that an edit can be applied consistently across cuts and camera angles, instead of being repeated manually for each shot. Scene continuity across cuts is one of the most labor-intensive tasks in editorial work, which is why Adobe framed this project around consistency rather than generation.

Screen Test focuses on character development. Creators build a fictional character's appearance, voice and personality, then use natural-language dialogue to explore how that character might respond in different scenes. The emphasis is on iterative exploration of a character's behavior, not one-shot generation.

Live Set explores real-time changes within a moving scene. Users can alter a subject, change an environment, or redirect the camera while a video continues to play. Adobe did not specify latency constraints or output resolution for the preview, a gap worth noting before drawing conclusions about production readiness.

On Cue addresses the timing of events in generated video. Creators direct when an action takes place — a flash of light, for example — using an editable timing signal drawn by hand or extracted from existing video or music. Timing control remains a known weakness of generated video, and this project is Adobe's research answer to it.

The video cluster, taken together, targets continuity, character consistency, live manipulation, and temporal precision — the four areas where generated and edited video most often breaks down.

What does Sound Bender do for audio?

One preview addressed audio: Sound Bender. It is designed to pull a described sound out of a finished mix and let users explore variations on an interactive canvas. From there, creators can shape a sound in real time, align its movement with video, or generate a new sound from a text description.

Audio separation from a completed mix — sometimes called "unmixing" — is a persistent problem for editors who receive finished material without stems (the separated instrumental and vocal tracks). Sound Bender is Adobe's research attempt to remove that dependency.

Which image and design tools were previewed?

Five previews focused on images and design workflows, the largest group alongside video.

Deep Brush uses AI to interpret the shape, color and lighting of an image. According to Adobe, this allows brushstrokes to follow surfaces, enables color changes that preserve shadows, and lets users paint light directly into a scene. It is one of the two projects already testable in the Adobe Labs Playground.

Sight Span turns a single image into a navigable environment. Creators can move within the scene, find new angles, and compose shots beyond the original frame. The project effectively treats a still photograph as a 3D-adjacent space rather than a fixed viewpoint.

Hands On uses object segmentation (automatically separating a subject from its background) and vision-language models (AI systems that connect images and text) to place controls directly on the image canvas. Users manipulate elements of a scene by hand rather than relying solely on menus or separate control panels. It is the second project available in the Playground.

Rinse Repeat copies edits from one part of an image to another. Critically, the process recreates those edits with native Photoshop tools, so the results remain editable for later refinement. That detail matters: the output is layered, adjustable work rather than a flattened AI-generated patch.

Link Up explores gesture in design work. A drag action can express a creator's intent — placing a car in an illustrated parking space, for instance — after which the system adjusts perspective, scale and style to match the surrounding scene. The result is left as editable vector artwork, preserving downstream editability in the same spirit as Rinse Repeat.

The imaging cluster shows a consistent design philosophy: AI proposes, the creator keeps native, editable control. Whether that philosophy survives contact with shipping products is a separate question Adobe has not yet answered.

How can users try these projects?

Alongside the stage previews, Adobe expanded Adobe Labs as a channel for ongoing research feedback. Labs now combines research updates, professional workflows and early-stage experiments from across the company's teams.

Within that broader offering, the new Playground gives users access to selected previews, including:

• Project Deep Brush — AI-interpreted brushwork that follows surfaces and lighting
• Project Hands On — direct on-canvas manipulation using segmentation and vision-language models
• Project Custom Filters — a Photoshop feature preview

The move signals a shift in how Adobe exposes experimental work. Rather than limiting public exposure to annual demonstrations, the company is putting selected prototypes in front of users earlier and gathering feedback as it assesses which ideas develop into product features. No timeline was given for converting any of the 10 previews into shipping features, and Adobe's Sneaks history includes projects that never reached commercial release.

What is the takeaway?

The 2026 Sneaks batch emphasizes automation paired with direct user control — scene continuity, event timing, image manipulation, sound extraction, and gesture-driven design — and the friction points it targets are real, long-standing ones in creative work. The expanded Labs Playground, with Deep Brush, Hands On and Custom Filters available now, is the concrete change: it converts Sneaks from a once-a-year spectacle into a continuous feedback loop between Adobe Research and working creatives.