Adobe expands Saudi AI partnership with MCIT, HUMAIN

Adobe’s commitment under the partnership exceeds $4 billion.

Adobe announced the expansion of its partnership with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) and PIF-owned global integrated AI capabilities company, HUMAIN, to support the growth of Saudi Arabia’s creative sector.

The company said in a statement received by Argaam that Adobe’s commitment under the partnership exceeds $4 billion. It plans to provide Adobe Firefly Standard and Adobe Express Premium features free of charge for 12 months to more than 27 million eligible citizens and residents in the Kingdom aged 13 and above. The partnership also includes the development of an image generation model tailored to Saudi culture.

The strategic partnership will support Adobe in expanding access to AI solutions that enhance creativity, productivity and customer experiences. Adobe Firefly, the integrated AI-powered creative studio, is at the core of these solutions, bringing together leading industry AI models, Adobe’s professional editing tools and agentic AI capabilities. It unifies the creative workflow, from ideation and visualization to generating and editing images, video, audio and design assets through to production.

Adobe said Adobe Express enables consumers, business professionals, students and small businesses to quickly and easily create content ready for publishing on any platform, either by incorporating content created in Firefly or choosing from hundreds of thousands of professionally designed templates, including social media posts, digital content, posters, flyers and presentations.

Adobe also announced that Adobe Express will support Modern Standard Arabic and right-to-left writing starting today on desktop, web and iOS, providing greater creative capabilities for Arabic speakers worldwide. The support includes typography, text editing and user interface controls, as well as a dedicated set of templates designed with Saudi culture in mind.

Adobe said it plans to launch an image model with HUMAIN soon, jointly developed as the first image-generation model built using Adobe Firefly Foundry. The HUMAIN and Adobe image model is designed to generate high-quality images that reflect the cultural context, visual references and creative needs of Saudi citizens and creative teams.

Adobe said its support also extends to the Kingdom’s startup ecosystem, providing eligible startups and early-stage entrepreneurs participating in the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology’s Center of Digital Entrepreneurship (CODE) and The Garage with free access to a selected set of its creative tools for one year, along with expertise and training, starting in early 2027. This will help them realize their potential and support the broader startup ecosystem.

In terms of skills development, Adobe said it is working with MCIT’s Future Skills initiative to provide free, hands-on learning courses through Adobe Digital Academy. The academy helps individuals worldwide build skills in creativity, marketing and AI, enabling them to participate in the creative economy.