Comment by DowagerDave
14 hours ago
you don't need to release to production for real value. I'm under intense pressure to scope out frothy AI features because just discussing them with prospects has a material impact on the costs of the sales funnel.
> just discussing them with prospects [...] sales funnel
I'll admit I have no idea what % of Adobe licensees/subscribers are individuals and small visual/graphic design firms (who choose Adobe for personal reasons) compared to larger companies (news agencies, web-design body-shops, etc) where employees use the tools given to them despite any personal preferences for rivals like Procreate, etc - and the rest: students, hobbyist photographers, etc.
...but none of the aforementioned market-segments seem like they'd make "AI" (whatever that means) any part of their purchasing-decision. Buzzwords only help sales when the audience is ignorant and/or impressionable; and when your audience are well-informed, seasoned (and cynical) professionals then buzzwords have the opposite effect and damage a company's credibility.
...so I'm not sure who, exactly, Adobe is trying to message with their press-copy for Adobe Firefly (their "generative AI for business" product); perhaps it's just a charade meant only for their shareholders? I'm glad they aren't copying Microsoft and shoving AI branding where it really doesn't belong and compromising the user-experience (...at least not so the same extent).
Execs love genai & execs make purchasing decisions.
Yup, this. I've recently interacted with someone whose board pushed for a company-wide coding assistant rollout, with the explicit goal of reducing development staff, or rather costs. The developers weren't really asking for it, but leadership assumes that they wouldn't, if it could make them redundant.
Seems like getting decisions made at that level can be extremely valuable, and at the same time lets you get away with building something that just seems like a useful product - because the people you're selling to won't use it. And furthermore, they will already go into this assuming resistance from the actual users, so they're unlikely to even listen to their feedback.
Of course it's not a long term strategy, but it seems like a potent short term money maker.
This sounds closer to fake value.