According to Gizmodo, starting today, OpenAI has integrated Adobe’s Photoshop, Express, and Acrobat directly into ChatGPT. This allows the chatbot’s 800 million users to edit photos, create graphics, and manage PDFs using plain-language prompts without needing deep software knowledge. Adobe President of Digital Media David Wadhwani framed it as putting powerful editing tools into a platform people already use daily. The move follows OpenAI’s October announcement of app integrations with services like Canva and Spotify, solidifying its strategy to make ChatGPT function more like an operating system. For now, the features are free to use on desktop, web, and iOS, with Android getting full support soon, though users will still need to open Adobe’s actual software for more extensive edits.
The OS Play and Adobe’s Gamble
Here’s the thing: this isn’t really about photo editing. It’s about territory. OpenAI is aggressively building what it calls “apps,” turning ChatGPT from a conversational bot into a central hub for services. Think of it like an app store, but you never leave the chat window. For OpenAI, every major app it brings in—whether it’s Uber, DoorDash, or now Adobe—makes its platform stickier and more essential. It’s a brilliant way to lock in users.
For Adobe, the calculus is different. They’re playing the distribution game. Sure, they have their own AI assistants in Photoshop and Express, but that only reaches people already inside their walled garden. By planting their flag in ChatGPT, they get a front-row seat to 800 million potential users who might never have opened Creative Cloud. It’s a classic “freemium” funnel: get folks hooked on simple, free edits in ChatGPT, then upsell them to the full, pricey subscription when they hit the limits. Basically, they’re trading a bit of control for a massive new top-of-funnel.
Winners, Losers, and the Awward Reality
So who wins? OpenAI and Adobe, obviously. But what about the users? The immediate experience, as Gizmodo notes, is “very limited.” You can boost saturation or slap a template on an invitation, but the “granular control” of the real apps is out of reach. And let’s be honest, we should all expect some weird AI hallucinations in our edits. Is typing “make my skin smoother” into ChatGPT and getting a slightly melted face really better than using a dedicated, simple phone app?
The losers here might be the middlemen—the countless standalone, simple graphic design and PDF utilities. If ChatGPT can do a “good enough” job for free, why download another app? The real question is pricing. It’s free *for now*. You can bet both companies are looking at this as a loss leader. Will it become a premium ChatGPT feature? Will Adobe offer a “ChatGPT Lite” subscription? That’s the billion-dollar question.
Is This the Future of Work?
Look, the integration with Acrobat for PDF merging and redaction? That could be genuinely handy for everyday office drudgery. Express for quick social media graphics? Sure. But calling this “using Photoshop” is a stretch. It’s more like having a very eager, slightly clumsy intern who has access to a few Photoshop levers. They’ll do what you ask, but you wouldn’t trust them with a client project.
This move signals where the puck is going: complex software is getting a conversational layer. You won’t need to know *how* to use a tool, just what you *want* from it. But we’re in the early, clunky days. The promise is “edit with your words.” The current reality is probably a lot of trial, error, and saying “undo.”
