This past year, language for “glassmorphism” surged in Firefly prompts, along with prompts for “minimalism” and “cinematic” styles, while emotional descriptors like “wistfulness” and “nostalgia” trended up as well — all pointing to a real-time shift in creative attitudes.
With 2025 in the books, our Adobe Digital Insights research team reviewed millions of anonymized and aggregated Firefly prompts across 20+ countries. The results show the most frequent terms users are prompting for in Firefly, translated by language and adjusted for word root.
We can see how creative patterns changed last year as new styles took hold, others declined, and users grew more sophisticated with their prompt outputs. It is no surprise that the average Firefly prompt length nearly doubled over the course of the year, from 23 characters in January to 47 by December 2025 as users became more capable prompters while also adopting prompt suggestions (and potentially influenced by the popularity of Google’s Nano Banana model in Firefly, which favors longer prompts).
We analyzed prompt language by several categories — food, cities, art styles, colors, fantasy, and emotions — to provide a window into the creative zeitgeist of 2025. While our 2026 Creative Trends Forecast looks forward, this data reflects last year’s global creative patterns in users own words. Let’s dive in.
Retro aesthetics and trendy “glassmorphism” styles surged
Around the world, photography-related prompt styles were the top aesthetic for creators, with “photo” and “cinematic” as the two most-prompted terms. “Minimalism” came in third place — proof that the longstanding design movement continues to dominate many years past its 2000s tech resurgence. On its heels, “3D” styles came in at number five, showing the influence of a more contemporary design aesthetic, now made more accessible to a range of creators through the power of AI models like Firefly.
Trending up in 2025 were prompts around “static,” “stippling”, “halftone” and “grainy”, revealing a growing interest in more nostalgic mediums and techniques. This tracks with our latest 2026 Creative Trends Forecast, which predicts that audiences will crave visual products that carry with them a human touch and sense of authenticity (no surprise then that “hyperrealism” trended down in 2025 as well). “Glassmorphism” is also seeing a big surge in interest, matching Apple’s recent high-profile “Liquid Glass” design system.
In addition to “fantasy” and “anime,” “steampunk” lost steam over the course of the year as the once ubiquitous style of 2010s hipsterdom declined in use among prompters.
Melancholy and the infinite happiness
We also analyzed all Firefly prompts by emotionally valent words to see if any interesting patterns emerged. Positive, calming emotions dominated with “happiness,” “serenity,” “confident,” “relaxation,” and “joy” taking the top five spots. “Confident,” “nostalgia,” and “relaxation” were the top three trending terms as well, with “apprenhension” and “anger” the top falling emotions by prompt usage.
Across all countries, “nostalgia,” “melancholy,” and “wistfulness” were all top risers as well. These related, backwards-facing emotions may correlate with the 2026 Global Trends we’ve been tracking around emotional expression, feeling, and connection. Users are creating art that isn’t just looking to please and placate, but also to situate audiences inside a world that has perhaps lost as much as it has gained.
Dragons reign
Though HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoff series “House of the Dragon” returns for a third season in 2026, that did not stop “Dragons” from leading the world’s imagination in 2025, taking the top spot as the most prompted fantasy term. “Fairy”, “angel,” “ghost,” and “unicorn” rounded out the top five, helping to fill out everyone’s Lisa Frank fever dream. “Demon” topped “witch,” with “elf,” “zombie,” and “wizard,” finishing the top ten.
Colors palettes are growing up as prompters dialed in the right prompt vocabulary
While the primary colors “white,” “black,” “blue,” “red,” “green,” “pink,” and “yellow” were the most prompted in 2025, they also fell in popularity as they year went on. The story here may point to users growing sophistication when it comes to color prompts, changing their language to produce more precise results.
The trending colors bear this out. Prompts for “amber,” “ivory,” and “beige” all gained in popularity, in addition to richer and more saturated colors like “cobalt,” “crimson,” and “indigo” — highlighting preferences for more natural color palettes. The more electric “Cyan” was a top mover as well, not surprising considering 2025 was the year that Cyan’s close cousin “Olo” was first discovered in the lab.
New York, the concrete jungle that prompts are made of
For all users around the globe, New York was the most frequently prompted city, followed by Paris, London, Los Angeles, and Tokyo. Dubai, Rome, and Chicago took the six through eight spots. Across the top 20, U.S. cities accounted for 30 percent of all prompts. And among top trending cities, Brussels took the number one spot, followed by Manila and Copenhagen. Spanish cities Valencia and Seville also made the trending list.
If we drill down into prompt popularity at a national level, a few interesting elements stand out. Unsurprisingly, every country’s most populous city was in their top two, yet “New York” was the most widely prompted city in Spain, Italy, and Mexico, in addition to the United States.
When it comes to food, national tastes—and traditions—clearly dominated
Tastes often reflect culture, proving that some stereotypes exist for a reason. Our data showed that France was most in love with the “baguette”, while India favored “curry” above all other countries, Italians prompted both “pizza” and “pasta” the most, and Japan preferred most every meal (or prompt) with “rice.”
Argentina, however, was the top spot for “burgers,” while the U.S. was most keen on “donut” prompts compared to the rest of the world. Taiwan topped all nations for “milk” — an artifact, perhaps, of the country’s love affair with milk tea, milk bread, and milk mochi. Interestingly, while neither “bread” nor “pizza” appeared on every nation’s top ten list, “cake” did, highlighting that every nation prefers to eat their cake and prompt for it too.
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This prompt usage data matches many of the same insights and predictions our team compiled in our annual 2026 Creative Trends report. Inspired by the analysis? Get started now, using Adobe’s commercially-safe Firefly AI models as well as many other exciting third-party models now available in Firefly.
