Adobe's latest AI "sneaks" turn photos into walkable 3D scenes and let you audition AI characters by talking to them

Adobe has shown its latest batch of experimental AI tools, the "sneaks" it previews around its Max conference, Jess Weatherbed reports for The Verge. They're tech demos, so there's no guarantee any becomes a product, but AI is now central to Adobe's growth plans.

Project Screen Test

A tool for building AI characters for video by talking to them. You start with a few personality traits ("anxious, shy, awkward") and a voice, picked from presets, described in a prompt or cloned from sample audio. Then you flesh the character out in a video-call-style conversation: backstory, temperament, goals, flaws, fears, how it moves. Finally you describe a scene and it generates animated screen tests. Weatherbed found the characters more consistent than most AI animation, though it's a standalone exercise for now with no clear path into Adobe's video tools.

Project Sight Span

Turns any flat image, whether photo, painting or illustration, into a 3D space you can move through and reframe, inventing what lies outside the original frame. The 3D view is blurry while you explore, then sharpens once you settle on an angle. Styles, tattoos and faces stay surprisingly faithful. Weatherbed compares it to a much more aggressive version of Apple's Spatial Reframing, and wonders whether the result still counts as a photo.

Project Sound Bender

Upload a clip, describe the sound you want ("bubbling sci-fi cauldron noises"), and it generates synced effects. Each corner of a square canvas holds a different AI-made variation, and dragging the cursor around blends them live.

Project Rinse Repeat

Copy an edit and apply it to other people or objects in the same image. Retouch one face in a group shot and it adapts the work to everyone else, or add shadows to differently shaped products in a marketing graphic. Because it rebuilds the edits with native Photoshop tools, they stay editable.

Gautham Mysore, a research scientist at Adobe, said the point is also finer control for experienced creatives. Weatherbed's read: tools this capable could eventually replace parts of the software and stock libraries creative pros rely on today.

Scoreboard update: AI +1. Adobe's prototypes direct actors, build sets and mix sound from a prompt.

Stay undead.