Adobe released a beta of AI Assisted Editor on 27th August, 2026, an optional Photoshop mode that swaps the manual toolset for a prompt box. The same update lets Prompt to Edit run on image models from Google, OpenAI and Black Forest Labs alongside Adobe’s own Firefly.
The Big Picture
- Adobe Photoshop now carries a menu bar toggle that switches into a simplified, prompt-driven interface, and users can hide it from Settings.
- Prompt to Edit supports FLUX.2 [pro], FLUX.1 Kontext [pro], Gemini 3.1, Gemini 3, Gemini 2.5, GPT Image 2 and Adobe’s own model, and writes two variations to a new layer.
- Firefly Image 5 handles prompt-based masked edits after a rough selection, which Adobe says answers complaints about quality loss and mismatched lighting.
- A dockable Stock panel puts more than 900 million Adobe Stock assets inside Photoshop, next to a new non-destructive light adjustment layer.
- AI Assisted Editor ships as a beta, while the masked edits, light layer, Dynamic Text extension and Stock panel are generally available at once.
Adobe puts rival image models behind Photoshop’s prompt box
Prompt to Edit rewrites a whole image from one instruction, turning a daytime shot into a night scene or swapping rain for sun. The tool now runs on FLUX.2 [pro] and FLUX.1 Kontext [pro] from Black Forest Labs, Gemini 3.1 with Nano Banana 2, Gemini 3 with Nano Banana Pro and Gemini 2.5 with Nano Banana from Google, GPT Image 2 from OpenAI, and Adobe’s own model.
Each run creates a new layer holding two variations of the edited image, so a Gemini or GPT Image result can sit beside a Firefly pass on the same file with the original pixels untouched.
Adobe has taken this route before with video, when it added Luma AI’s Ray3 model to Firefly in September 2025.
The image side is a bigger concession. Firefly was built as Adobe’s answer to exactly these models, and Google’s Nano Banana editor was pitched at the same casual retouching jobs that AI Assisted Editor now targets.
What the simplified mode contains?
The beta replaces Photoshop’s full editing surface with a short list: Prompt to Edit, Remove Background, Generative Expand, Remove Tool, Generative Fill, Generative Upscale and a new AI Markup tool. Results can be refined inside the mode or carried into the traditional interface, which Adobe calls the Pro Editor.
AI Markup is the piece aimed at people who don’t know the toolbar. Users draw roughly on the image, or click a region, and attach a plain instruction such as “Add more clouds” or “Add a banner with the text ON SALE NOW“. Adobe describes the tool as a way to “select areas to recolor, sketch arrows to indicate position, or brush in rough shapes to suggest new elements“, and Firefly generates the change from the sketch.
Masked edits are Adobe’s answer to the quality complaint
Alongside the beta, Photoshop gains prompt-based masked edits: a user roughly selects the part of the image they want changed and Firefly Image 5 edits only that region. Adobe frames this as a fix for much of the criticism of prompt editing, that results sometimes lose image quality or ignore the lighting and camera angle of the subject around them.
With the Instruct Edit with Masks update, Adobe says Firefly Image 5 now reads the whole image for context, so a user can describe a change such as opening closed eyes or adding a hat without marking every affected area by hand. Whether the model holds lighting and perspective across a masked edit is Adobe’s claim, and nobody outside the company has tested it yet.
The launch leaves four practical questions open. Does a Gemini or GPT Image 2 run draw on the same generative credits as Firefly? Do third-party outputs carry Content Credentials, and whose? Where does an image go when a non-Adobe model processes it? And can a layer built on one model be regenerated on another?
Light layers, curved text and a Stock panel round out the release
A new non-destructive layer handles light adjustments for Exposure, Contrast, Highlights, Shadows, Whites and Blacks, “so you get Camera Raw-level results without ever leaving your Photoshop layers workflow,” Adobe said in the announcement.
Dynamic Text now extends to any custom shape or path, so type follows a curve without manual rework. The Stock panel brings the 900 million asset Adobe Stock library into a dockable panel for preview and placement. Adobe files both under “more control, fewer interruptions,” a pitch aimed squarely at Photoshop’s paying user base.
SQ Magazine’s Takeaway
The headline feature is the toggle, but the durable change is the model menu. Photoshop is now a front end that can send a whole-image edit to Google, OpenAI or Black Forest Labs and place the result on a layer next to Firefly’s attempt. Firefly keeps the jobs that need pixel-level precision, meaning masked edits and markup, while the rivals get the broad stylistic rewrites.
What’s next depends on the credit and provenance answers above, and Adobe has not given them yet. Anyone on the beta should check which model produced a Prompt to Edit layer before sending client work. Keeping a Pro Editor pass as the final step helps reduce the risk of a lighting or perspective mismatch slipping through. A model selector for masked edits would be the logical next addition.
