Adobe just unveiled its new AI Assistant, an innovative addition to its Acrobat PDF management software.
Designed to revolutionize the digital document experience, the software giant's new tool aims to streamline the process of navigating extensive text documents and extracting relevant information.
Unlock your new era of productivity 🔓 with the new AI Assistant (beta) in Adobe Acrobat.
— Adobe Acrobat (@Acrobat) February 20, 2024
Now available on Acrobat desktop and web; coming soon to Reader. ✨
Learn more: https://t.co/L8Y09ynX52pic.twitter.com/G9Zj9tZf3s
Available in beta under Acrobat's paid subscription, AI Assistant operates as a "conversational engine," providing users with the ability to interact with documents in a more intuitive manner — similar to how they would talk to a chatbot.
The tool is built off of the AI and machine learning models found in Acrobat Liquid Mode, which is known for its responsive reading experiences on mobile PDFs.
The AI Assistant's Main Features
According to Adobe's press release, AI Assistant in Acrobat offers a range of functionalities, including summarizing files, answering questions and making recommendations based on content.
The AI tool allows users to "easily chat with documents" to obtain the information they need, significantly reducing the time-consuming tasks associated with working with a large number of documents.
One of the primary benefits of the feature is its ability to assist students in quickly finding information for research projects and generating a synopsis of lengthy reports for various purposes, such as emails, meetings and presentations.
The AI tool supports all document formats compatible with the Acrobat app, including Word and PowerPoint, ensuring versatility and accessibility for users across different platforms.
In terms of security, Adobe assures users that its AI Assistant adheres to the company's stringent data security protocols. It does not store data from customer documents or utilize it for training purposes, safeguarding user privacy and confidentiality.
"PDF is the de facto standard for the world’s most important documents," Abhigyan Modi, Document Cloud senior vice president, said in a statement.
"[The] capabilities introduced today are just the beginning of the value AI Assistant will deliver through Reader and Acrobat applications and services."
During the beta phase, AI Assistant is available to paying subscribers of Acrobat's Standard, Pro and Teams plans at no additional cost.
However, Modi indicated that post-beta phase, Reader and Acrobat users will have access to the full range of AI Assistant capabilities through a new add-on in their subscription plan.
While Adobe has not specified the duration of the beta period, the company has outlined a roadmap for future enhancements to AI Assistant.
These include integrations with the Firefly generative AI model, support for extracting information from multiple documents and sources simultaneously, and features for generating initial drafts and editing copy.
Editing by Katherine 'Makkie' Maclang