Adobe had already joined the generative AI trend in 2023 by adding the Firefly feature to its graphics apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Express. Now, the company is extending those efforts to its popular Acrobat and Reader PDF apps.
In a press release, Adobe announced it is launching a beta of a new AI assistant for Acrobat and Reader. It"s called, very unimaginatively, AI Assistant, and the company hopes people will use it to help them sort through the content that"s contained in PDF files.
Adobe says that AI Assistant can suggest questions for users to ask about the content in a PDF file, and of course, it can generate answers to those questions as well. AI Assistant can also create citations so the user can confirm the info from those answers. In addition, the feature can summarize the content in PDF files.
AI Assistant can help users navigate their way through a dense PDF file with clickable links and can help format content so it can be used for presentations, email messages, and more. Finally, Adobe says AI Assistant can also be used in other file formats, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, offering some competition to Microsoft"s own Copilot AI.
Adobe says it will be adding features to AI Assistant in the future, including creating document drafts, Firefly AI image generation, and more.
The beta is currently available for people on Acrobat Individual, Pro, and Teams plans, along with Acrobat Pro trial users. It will be added to Reader sometime in the very near future. Once it is out of the beta testing stage, Adobe plans to offer the full-featured version of AI Assistant for Reader and Acrobat users via a new subscription plan. Pricing for that new plan has yet to be revealed.