Adobe Firefly’s generative AI models can now create vector graphics in Illustrator

Illustrator is Adobe’s vector graphics tool for graphic artists and it’s about to join the generative AI era with the launch of the Firefly Vector Model at Adobe’s MAX conference today. Adobe describes the new model as “the world’s first generative AI model focused on producing vector graphics.” Like Firefly for creating images and photos, Firefly for Illustrator will be able to create entire vector graphics from scratch. And like the other Firefly models, the vector model, too, was trained on data from Adobe Stock.

In its beta, Illustrator will now let you create entire scenes through a text prompt. What’s nifty here is that those scenes can consist of multiple objects. So this isn’t just a jumble of vectors that make up the overall graphic but Illustrator will automatically generate these different objects and you can manipulate them individually to your heart’s content, just like any other group or layer in Illustrator.

Alexandru Costin, Adobe’s VP for generative AI and Sensei, told me the company used tens of millions of vector images in Adobe Stock to train Firefly to enable this new capability. Costin described the process as “a journey” and since there hasn’t been as much work done on using generative AI to create vector drawings compared to the work on creating other images, this surely took a bit more work on the team’s part. He noted that the team focused on creating a model that could generate these images with the fewest possible points, too.

Another new feature that’s coming to Illustrator is called Mockup, which allows Illustrator users to take any 3D scene and then take any vector art and apply it to that 3D scene. That could be a design for a drink can, for example, or a mockup of a new logo on a t-shirt. “Mockup is really exciting to show your customers the art in context so they understand what they’re buying when they contract you as a freelancer,” Costin explained.

Also new is Retype, which converts static text in images to editable text — and it’ll find matching fonts, too — and Illustrator is now available on the web, too!