Adobe Introduces AI Assistant for the Acrobat Platform

Adobe has just unveiled in beta its AI Assistant, a generative AI-powered conversational engine seamlessly integrated into Reader and Acrobat workflows. AI Assistant will instantly generate summaries and insights from lengthy documents, answer queries and optimise information for sharing in emails, reports and presentations. Using the same artificial intelligence and machine learning models that power Acrobat Liquid Mode, AI Assistant offers a deep understanding of PDF structure and content that ensures high-quality and reliable outputs. By introducing generative AI into Adobe software already used by millions, the new AI Assistant will clearly generate a lot of new value from the worldwide trove of approximately 3 trillion PDFs.

Immediate Benefits for Users

Customers using Acrobat Individual, Pro and Teams, as well as those using trial versions of Acrobat Pro, can immediately use the AI Assistant beta to boost productivity. These features will soon extend to Reader users, without the need for extra configuration. Some of the most important capabilities include:

• AI Assistant: recommends questions based on document content and provides answers through an intuitive conversational interface similar to ChatGPT and other text-based AI tools.
• Generative Summary: provides quick overviews of lengthy documents in easy-to-read formats.
• Intelligent Citations: generates citations to verify the source of answers.
• Easy Navigation: Provides clickable links for fast access to crucial information.
• Formatted Output: Consolidates and formats information into easy takeaways for various uses.
• Respect for Customer Data: Ensures data security by never storing or using customer document content without consent.

Interestingly and very usefully, the AI Assistant is not limited to PDFs: it also works with other document formats such as Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and documents from other platforms such as meeting transcripts.

Enhancing Collaboration and Productivity

AI Assistant streamlines tasks across different roles and purposes. For example, project managers can swiftly summarise meeting highlights, sales teams can personalise pitch decks efficiently, students can speed up their research and social media and marketing teams can stay updated on important trends. By simplifying tasks such as composing emails or reviewing contracts, the AI Assistant enhances productivity for knowledge workers and content consumers alike.

Current Limitations

In the beta, AI Assistant works for PDFs that meet certain criteria. These are:

• Files not exceeding 25 MB in size
• Files that don’t contain more than 120 pages
• Files must not be password-protected or have the “do not copy” permission enabled
• Files must not have been scanned
• Files must be in English

Future Developments in Intelligent Document Experiences

Adobe's roadmap for the AI Assistant will includes new capabilities, such as:

• Insights Across Documents: Surfacing important information from multiple documents and sources.
• AI-Powered Authoring: Simplifying document creation with first drafts and copy editing assistance.
• Intelligent Creation: Enabling creative enhancements for documents.
• Collaboration Support: Facilitating collaborative reviews with AI assistance.

Pricing and Availability

While Adobe plans to offer a full range of AI Assistant capabilities through a new subscription plan post-beta release, current features are available in beta for Acrobat Standard and Pro Individual/Teams subscribers at no extra cost. Desktop app users of Reader will receive these features in English in due course, with other languages to follow. Enterprise customers can access a private beta version.