At the India AI Impact Summit, Shantanu Narayan, Chairman and CEO of Adobe, stressed that India must not only play a leadership role in what artificial intelligence (AI) models mean and how we think about data, privacy, security and trust. In a pointed conversation with Sunil Bharti Mittal, founder and chairman of Bharti Enterprises, Narayan noted with a sense of responsibility that companies like Adobe help produce “the world’s content”, and therefore should play a leading role in content authenticity initiatives.
Additionally, Adobe has announced that in appreciation of the Government of India’s Create in India vision and measures proposed in the Union Budget 2026 that focus on the creation of two million jobs in the field of animation, visual effects, gaming and comics by the year 2030, the company is offering the first AI with an industry-supported curriculum for free to 15,000 schools and 500 colleges that will house Content Creator Labs. This will include free access to its popular apps, Photoshop, Acrobat and Firefly AI for students in the country.
“Adobe is expanding creativity opportunities for millions of students across India, empowering them with AI skills, further accelerating Prime Minister Modi’s vision,” says Narayan. The company emphasizes that they will continue to be a key partner in driving AI-led initiatives of the Government of India in the areas of creativity, human capital and trust and security in AI.
Adobe says the initiative will provide students with tools focused on creativity, productivity and AI-powered skills, which are expected to be useful in key growth areas such as graphic design, video and visual effects, animation, gaming, marketing, media and e-commerce.
On the question of whether major AI companies should act in a way that keeps things under control in terms of commercial use and therefore revenues as well as market share, Narayan says competition between commercial enterprises that want to keep information proprietary and those that don’t is an “inevitable challenge”.
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“One of the things we do is that everything we do is open standards. The reason PDF has been adopted so widely is because it was an open standard,” he continued, “but I think companies and enterprises will need to treat it differently and really need to recognize what their sustainable advantage is that, over time, can’t just become the model. It’s what people are going to have to get used to with that model.”
Narayan says that India is in a better position than most countries in this matter. Frugal innovation is one of those things. He says, “That’s our secret sauce, jugaad. I think it’s because we use jugaad. That’s the secret sauce and that’s how we’ve been able to succeed on the global stage.”
Adobe says free access to Firefly, Photoshop and Acrobat will be available to students at accredited higher education institutions across India, though details are awaited.
