Adobe Stock’s continued commitment to creators in the era of Generative AI

Image credit: Adobe Stock/ lithiumphoto.

Over the last 18 months, demand for exceptional content has continued to grow at an accelerated rate — which is expanding the opportunity for Stock content creators and contributors. There are also questions about the impact of Generative AI. As the leader of Adobe Stock, I would like to address the expanded opportunities we see for our contributors, address the concerns we hear, and share an update on how we are approaching this to support creators. Part of this commitment includes the second Adobe Firefly Contributor Bonus, adding more robust moderation around the use of artist names and titles that reference another artist's style, and making it easier for anyone to flag potentially problematic content.

Expanding opportunity for content creators

The increase in demand for exceptional content reaffirms our belief that the Stock contributor community of photographers, designers, illustrators, filmmakers, and multi-media artists of all kinds, are vital to the creative process and to Adobe. We are growing the opportunity for contributors and creators to potentially expand their earnings in multiple ways:

1. Adobe Stock contributor earnings are at an all-time high, driven by strong growth in new contributors, content submissions, and licenses of Stock content
2. New contributor opportunities with Adobe Content Missions (targeted sourcing of quality assets not on Adobe Stock) have greatly increased, driving new earnings for contributors who have accepted missions
3. New Generative AI features are coming to Adobe Stock, with the intent to increase licenses. In the coming months, we plan to introduce new features that will enable customers to adjust existing Stock content in real-time to more easily match their vision, style, or brand preferences, to increase license conversion and create a virtually unlimited catalogue of exceptional content. Connecting these features to the Adobe Stock collection increases the versatility of an asset, which we believe will make it more likely to be licensed, increasing contributor earnings potential.

Announcing our second Firefly contributor bonus payment

In addition to contributor earnings growing through Stock licensing and Content Missions, we are excited to issue our second Adobe Firefly bonus payment to Adobe Stock contributors in the coming weeks (in accordance with Adobe’s Generative AI Principles).

About the 2024 Adobe Firefly Contributor Bonus:

• All eligible Adobe Stock contributors with images, vectors, illustrations or, for the first time, videos, in the standard collection whose content was used to train Firefly will receive a bonus payment
• The 2024 bonus is based on the all-time number of approved videos as well as photos, vectors, or illustrations approved between June 3, 2023, and June 2, 2024, and the number of licenses that those assets generated in the same 12-month period. In addition, any Generative AI content uploaded within the same time frame and used for training will be included in the bonus
• Not all content submitted to Adobe Stock will be eligible for a Firefly bonus, as Firefly does not train on all content submitted to Adobe Stock
• Bonuses will be different for each contributor

Image credit: Adobe Stock/Graph Squad.

Addressing Generative AI questions & Adobe’s commitment to creators

We believe that Generative AI should be developed responsibly — and that starts with respect for creators’ rights and transparency about Generative AI in the Adobe Stock marketplace.

Over the last year we’ve made significant changes to our site, policies, and procedures to help identify and ensure transparency around generative content, clarify and amplify our policies around the use of generative AI, and create a collection that both meets our customers’ needs and helps to address creators’ concerns. We are preparing for a future where post-production of images will often include some use of AI editing, but professional photography and artistic judgment will continue to differentiate the best content.

Critical changes we have put in place are:

1. We have updated our Generative AI submission policies: Our submission policies prohibit contributors from submitting generative AI content with titles that imply that it is depicting a newsworthy event. If a contributor mistitles generative AI content, we will review and take appropriate action, including removing the content or terminating the contributor account.
2. We have updated our content usage policies: Our usage policies make it clear that editorial use of Adobe Stock content cannot be used to mislead or deceive and that doing so is a violation of our terms of service. Stock content must always be clearly marked when used in editorial content to help ensure people are not misled into thinking a real event is being depicted by the stock content. If a publisher or other licensee is using clearly labeled Stock content in misleading ways to deceive people, we will review and take appropriate action, which includes terminating their rights to that Stock content.
3. We have expanded our moderation policies & platform: We are investing in both people and technology to scale moderation for the massive increase in weekly submissions. First, we have tripled the size of our moderation team. Second, we have introduced new technology to help evaluate new submissions and audit the existing collection against our new policies. This expanded auditing has resulted in the reclassification and removal of over 100K assets.

Creator & artist protection

As we evolve Adobe Stock, we know there is more that we can and must do when it comes to helping protect artists. In addition to the efforts listed above, we are introducing the following updates:

1. Advanced name & keyword detection: New machine learning classifiers will aim to help identify when an artist’s name was used or referenced in a way that violates our policies. While this is difficult and often imperfect, it is something we are committed to getting better at over time. To that end, we are introducing a second effort to help identify problematic content: a user-based Report Issue button.
2. Report Issue button: We are introducing a new Report Issue feature that allows anyone to flag licensable assets that contain names of artists or content that may infringe on IP rights, empowering them to further help protect their own content and/or help ensure that the rights of their fellow creators are respected.

Moving forward: Generative AI & creator value

At Adobe, we’re deeply invested in evaluating and thinking carefully about how Generative AI is changing creative workflows and ensuring that it is ultimately a technology that improves creator productivity, unlocks human potential and serves creative careers.

We’re committed to innovating responsibly, in partnership with creators, stock contributors and customers.