Generative AI has arrived in Adobe’s PDF tools, making software without chatbots a thing of the past. The shift highlights how quickly generative AI has integrated into basic productivity programs.
Back in 1993, when Adobe introduced the Portable Document Format, it changed how documents looked and worked.
The PDF served as a versatile container, mirroring the look and feel of paper pages. When Adobe launched a free Acrobat reader in 1994, users—from government agencies to medical clinics—could access digital records that looked like the originals.
“It wasn't like a text message, which is a native digital format or an email or a web page,” says Matthew Kirschenbaum, an English professor at the University of Maryland and author of Track Changes, a book about the history of word processing. “The PDF was all about the cultural authority of print and documents that emerged out of human contexts, professions, motivations.”
More than thirty years later, Adobe has begun weaving generative AI into the PDF experience.
Adobe kicked off this AI facelift last year by adding an assistant to Acrobat that responds to queries about a document’s content. Today, it has introduced Adobe Acrobat Studio, a suite that expands AI tools and features “PDF spaces” where people can upload several files and set how the assistant replies.
“We're reintroducing the brand,” says Michi Alexander, the vice president of product marketing at Adobe. “We've been around for 32 years now, but this is the biggest inflection point for us since launch.”
This launch goes beyond one company. Acrobat Studio offers a glimpse of how generative AI will appear in everyday software. It shows that even tasks we take for granted—like searching within a document—are now powered by machine learning.
These days, opening a new Google Doc, tapping the Instagram search box, or changing iPhone Messages settings means facing AI tools at every turn. Power users may welcome these options, but many people are showing signs of fatigue at the flood of generative AI in recent apps. A Pew Research Center report earlier this year found that US adults feel more worry than excitement about how AI will change their work and daily routines. Some have even turned off default AI options just to keep a cleaner interface.
Adobe may be echoing wider tech trends now, but it has a track record of pushing the PDF forward. Duff Johnson, CEO of the PDF Association (a vendor-neutral body overseeing PDF standards and compatibility), recalls when Adobe added support for transparent images. “The industry had to race a lot as soon as Adobe introduced this.” Soon after, Apple and Microsoft brought similar transparency functions to their offerings.
This AI-centric update differs from past tweaks by shifting some tasks—from drafting to reviewing—to algorithmic processes that can be inconsistent. “There is now AI in these very specifically human-centered document forms,” Kirschenbaum says. “And to me, that's notable.” In the same way that handwriting gave way to typing, this change could transform how users interact with documents.
“We were the ones that created the PDF,” Alexander says. “And we really see this as our opportunity to redefine what a PDF is.”
Users may recall Acrobat Studio years from now as a milestone update—like the arrival of transparency—or regard it as just another feature among many. Either way, this launch marks a key point for the format.
This year may go down as the moment AI swallowed up mainstream software. Using an app without running into several generative AI functions is now a rare exception. Time will tell how long this phase continues. Developers may need to adapt as AI becomes a standard feature rather than an add-on.