Who gets to train creative AI? Adobe’s Firefly expansion puts licensing in focus

Adobe is giving AI agents more room to work inside Photoshop and Premiere Pro. For photographers, designers and editors, the expansion raises a question that comes before the first prompt. Whose work trained the model, and under what terms?

ET Digital is on the ground at Adobe MAX 2026, where we spoke with Adobe Chief Legal Officer Louise Pentland as the company expanded Firefly and announced integrations that let third-party agents tap into its creative apps.

Adobe says its initial commercial Firefly model was trained on Adobe Stock images, openly licensed material and public-domain works whose copyright had expired. Work from Adobe Stock contributors can be included under their contributor agreements. Adobe says it does not train Firefly on Creative Cloud subscribers’ personal content.


The terms can change when a creator switches models. Firefly offers third-party models alongside Adobe’s own, and Adobe lists which partner models qualify for supplemental coverage under eligible agreements. Two images generated in the same app for the same campaign can therefore come with different terms depending on which model produced them.

Asked whether third-party agents would be able to use every feature available in Adobe’s apps, Pentland said, “I don’t want to make it absolute like that.” She said Adobe wants to give creators flexibility in how they work. Some edits are easier to describe to an agent, while others are easier to make directly by selecting or moving something on screen. “It really depends on the task in hand,” she said.

Pentland also pointed to Content Credentials as a way for creators and publishers to attach information about where an image or video came from. “You can see and trust who it is that is telling you something about this,” she said. When a piece of content lacks that information, she said viewers should ask, “Where does it come from? Who’s publishing it? What motivation do they have to deceive me?”

Adobe’s multi-year alliance with Disney brings the discussion into a large creative operation. The companies plan to use custom AI models and tools to explore early ideas for projects including parks and cruise experiences. The announcement describes those internal uses and leaves the licensing terms undisclosed.

For a studio delivering a campaign or an editor finishing a video, the practical question is what they can verify before publication. If an agent uses several models to finish a job, the person signing off needs to know which model generated each asset and what terms apply to its use.