Digital transformation is no longer optional for businesses—it’s a necessity for growth. At the Adobe Summit, I had the opportunity to speak with Jeremy Willmott, Senior Director of Adobe’s Digital Strategy Group in the APAC region, about how Adobe is leading the way in helping businesses embrace this shift with the power of AI. One of the key innovations that stood out was Adobe’s Agentic AI—an intelligent suite of tools designed to work as collaborative teammates, automating high-value marketing tasks and empowering teams to focus on strategy and creativity.
In this blog post, I will delve into the transformative role Adobe’s Agentic AI plays in the marketing world, its impact on marketing teams, and how it’s reshaping the future of digital marketing.
What is Adobe’s Agentic AI?
Adobe’s Agentic AI is a cutting-edge, AI-powered suite of tools embedded within Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). It is designed to make the lives of marketers easier by automating repetitive tasks, such as content creation, audience targeting, and website optimisation. By doing this, it reduces manual effort and frees up time for teams to focus on strategy, creativity, and high-impact decision-making.
Jeremy Willmott explained, “We’ve built a team of experts with experience in customer-side roles—CFO, CIO, and CMO roles—to understand the practical challenges businesses face. With the help of real-time data and insights, Adobe is empowering marketers to address these challenges head-on and unlock new growth opportunities.”
Key Features of Adobe’s Agentic AI
The core of Adobe’s Agentic AI lies in its suite of purpose-built AI agents that address common marketing challenges. During the Adobe Summit, Adobe unveiled ten distinct AI agents that perform specific functions to streamline marketing processes and deliver superior results. Here are some of the key agents:
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Content Production Agent
Automates the process of creating content, from images to copy. It speeds up content workflows while maintaining a high level of quality and creativity. -
Site Optimization Agent
Helps marketers optimise website performance, ensuring faster load times and better user experience, directly leading to higher conversion rates. -
Experimentation Agent
Helps run A/B testing and experiments on content and landing pages, ensuring that marketers can optimise their strategies based on data-driven insights. -
Audience Targeting Agent
Uses real-time data to build detailed customer profiles, allowing businesses to target the right people with the right message at the right time.
By automating these high-value tasks, Adobe’s Agentic AI is designed to save marketers hours of manual effort and enable them to focus on strategic priorities. The seamless integration of Adobe Firefly and Workfront capabilities into GenStudio also provides marketers with a single, intuitive interface for creating, deploying, and measuring campaigns in real-time.
Overcoming Challenges in AI Adoption
While Agentic AI promises a revolution in marketing, it’s not without its challenges. Jeremy Willmott pointed out that, while many businesses are experimenting with AI, one-third of APAC companies still struggle with figuring out where to begin. The questions that many businesses face include:
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Where do we start?
Should AI be applied to content creation, audience building, scaling content, or measurement? -
How do we scale AI adoption responsibly?
With AI’s growing capabilities, businesses must navigate complex issues such as data privacy and ethical AI use.
Willmott added, “The biggest challenge we see is not knowing where to begin. It’s about selecting the right use cases that will have the greatest impact.”
The Importance of AI Ethics and Transparency
As AI continues to evolve, businesses must consider not just what AI can do, but how it’s done. Adobe places a high emphasis on responsibility, transparency, and accountability when it comes to AI development. Adobe’s Content Authenticity Initiative is one example of this commitment, ensuring that digital content created with AI tools is transparent, with clear information on its origins and creation process. This initiative also helps combat issues like misinformation and deepfakes.
Willmott stressed the importance of ethics in AI adoption, explaining, “All of Adobe’s AI tools go through rigorous ethics protocols, ensuring that the technology is used responsibly in specific marketing use cases.”
The Role of AI in the Workforce: Enhancing, Not Replacing
One common concern about AI is its potential to replace human roles. However, Willmott emphasised that AI isn’t here to take jobs, but to enhance human capabilities. In fact, AI-powered marketing tools can actually empower marketers by making them more efficient, creative, and strategic.
One skill that marketers must develop in the age of AI is prompt engineering—learning how to craft effective inputs for generative AI systems. This skill is becoming the next marketing superpower. As Willmott puts it, “AI won’t replace your job—but someone who knows how to use AI better than you might.”
Marketers should focus on asking the right questions, learning how to use AI tools effectively, and thinking critically about how to measure success in the context of AI-powered campaigns.
Future Trends in Marketing and AI
Looking ahead, Willmott believes that the brands that successfully integrate AI into their marketing processes will be the ones that succeed in the future. While traditional marketing fundamentals—understanding your customers, crafting the right message, selecting the right channels—remain essential, AI can dramatically enhance how these activities are executed.
Willmott advises companies to identify their most critical marketing opportunities—whether acquisition, conversion, retention, or brand building—and then use AI tools to support those goals. By aligning AI with business objectives, companies can improve their marketing workflows, automate routine tasks, and ultimately gain a competitive advantage in a digital-first world.
Conclusion: Embracing AI to Unlock Marketing Potential
Adobe’s Agentic AI is changing the way marketing teams operate by automating mundane tasks and enabling them to focus on more creative and strategic aspects of their work. As AI becomes more integrated into the marketing landscape, businesses must adopt it thoughtfully and responsibly to gain a competitive edge.
The future of marketing lies in the synergy between human creativity and AI-driven precision. By embracing AI’s power and pairing it with human ingenuity, businesses can create more personalised and effective customer experiences at scale, leading to greater success in the digital age.
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Photo credit: Verdict
