In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, creators are understandably concerned about safeguarding and gaining attribution for their work and having more control over how it’s used. Adobe has a long history of supporting the creative community, with tools and services that empower creative endeavors.
That’s why we’re excited to introduce Adobe Content Authenticity, a new, free web app that allows creators to easily attach Content Credentials to their digital work — helping you protect your work, show attribution and better connect with your audiences online. Content Credentials are like a “nutrition label” and serve as secure metadata that can help you share information about yourself and your work. Just as a painter might add their signature to their painting, applying Content Credentials to your work with the web app is like signing your work in the digital world.
Adding information about yourself to your work with Content Credentials can help ensure that once it’s shared online, it can be traced back to you. It’s a way to both protect your work and provide more transparency by helping people who come across your content discover more of what you’ve created and learn about your work through your social media and website.
With the web app, you can also select a Generative AI Training and Usage Preference to influence how generative AI models from other companies use your work. Adding this preference indicates to other supporting generative AI models that you don’t want your work to be trained on or used.
At Adobe, we believe that transparency in digital content is paramount to fostering a more trustworthy digital ecosystem. We founded the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) in 2019, which has since grown to 3,700 members — all committed to promoting widespread adoption of Content Credentials. Now, with the Content Authenticity web app, we’re thrilled to expand on this work and bring Content Credentials to creators everywhere.
Create and manage Content Credentials with Adobe Content Authenticity
Here’s a look at the key features in the Content Authenticity web app:
- While Adobe Firefly is only trained on content we have permission to use — never on customer content, not all other generative AI models follow this approach. With the Generative AI Training and Usage Preference in the web app, you use Content Credentials to signals that you do not want other generative AI models in the market to use or train on your content. Spawning, an AI opt-out aggregator, has committed to recognizing this preference, and we’re actively working to drive industry-wide adoption for this feature. You can expect to hear more from us on this in the future.
- It’s important to note that if you apply this preference, it won’t be eligible for submission to Adobe Stock. This is because Adobe trains Firefly on licensed Adobe Stock content and this preference helps ensure that we’re respecting your choice about how you want your content to be used. Learn more here.
- Setting this preference also prevents others from using your work on select Adobe Firefly-powered features like Style Reference, Structure Reference, and Generate Similar. This is because although these tools don’t train on your content, they use generative inference technology to influence the outcome and the output.
To help people discover and view the Content Credentials that you apply to your files, we’re also releasing additional tools as a part of our commitment to expanding transparency online with Content Credentials:
- See a detailed history with the Inspect tool. When you drop a file with Content Credentials attached into the new Inspect tool, you’ll be able to see a comprehensive view of the information available. For example, if you take a photo with a Leica M11-P that embeds Content Credentials at the point of capture, edit it with Adobe Photoshop while opting to include Content Credentials, and then upload the final work to the Content Authenticity web app to “sign” it and add the generative AI preference, all these Content Credentials become viewable in the Inspect tool.
- Sign your work with Content Credentials that are durable. Content Credentials that you apply with the web app are durable and persistent. Leveraging a combination of secure metadata, invisible watermarks, and digital fingerprinting technology, your Content Credentials will remain connected to your work even if the metadata is removed or if someone takes a screenshot.
An app designed for creators and by creators
The idea to build the Content Authenticity web app was sparked through many conversations with our creative community. For example, our team had many conversations with photographers who shared frustration about their work being reposted without permission, with illustrators who’ve had generative AI models train on their unique style and others. The features and experience you’ll find within Content Authenticity reflect what we’ve heard from the creators we’ve talked to, and we plan to continue these conversations as we further develop the web app. Here are some initial thoughts from members of the creator community:
Learn more about Adobe Content Authenticity
The Content Authenticity web app will be available as a free public beta in Q1 2025. Our plan is to integrate Content Authenticity with Creative Cloud apps that support Content Credentials like Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom and more, ultimately becoming a centralized hub for managing your Content Credentials preferences across Adobe apps.
Learn more and join the waitlist to be notified when we’re ready for you to try out Content Authenticity. And if you’ll be at Adobe MAX in Miami Beach, be sure to come by booth 424 to preview the tool.