Adobe has announced AI Assistant in beta, a new generative AI-powered conversational engine in Reader and Acrobat.

Deeply integrated into Reader and Acrobat workflows, AI Assistant instantly generates summaries and insights from long documents, answers questions and formats information for sharing in emails, reports and presentations. AI Assistant is bringing generative AI to the masses, unlocking new value from the information inside the approximately 3 trillion PDFs in the world.

AI Assistant leverages the same artificial intelligence and machine learning models behind Acrobat Liquid Mode, the technology that supports responsive reading experiences for PDFs on mobile. These proprietary models provide a deep understanding of PDF structure and content, enhancing quality and reliability in AI Assistant outputs. 

“Generative AI offers the promise of more intelligent document experiences by transforming the information inside PDFs into actionable, knowledge and professional-looking content,” said Abhigyan Modi, senior vice president, Document Cloud.

“PDF is the de facto standard for the world’s most important documents and the capabilities introduced today are just the beginning of the value AI Assistant will deliver through Reader and Acrobat applications and services.”

Immediately delivering new value

Acrobat Individual, Pro and Teams customers and Acrobat Pro trialists can use the AI Assistant beta to work more productively today, with features coming to Reader over the coming days and weeks. No complicated implementations are required. Simply open Reader or Acrobat and start working with the new capabilities, including:

• AI Assistant: AI Assistant recommends questions based on a PDF’s content and answers questions about what’s in the document – all through an intuitive conversational interface.
• Generative summary: Get a quick understanding of the content inside long documents with short overviews in easy-to-read formats.
• Intelligent citations: Adobe’s custom attribution engine and proprietary AI generate citations so customers can easily verify the source of AI Assistant’s answers.
• Easy navigation: Clickable links help customers quickly find what they need in long documents so they can focus their time exploring and actioning the most important information.
• Formatted output: Ask AI Assistant to consolidate and format information into top takeaways, text for emails, presentations, reports and more. A “copy” button makes it easy to cut, paste and pass along.
• Respect for customer data: AI Assistant features in Reader and Acrobat are governed by data security protocols and no customer document content is stored or used for training AI Assistant without their consent.
• Beyond PDF: Customers can use AI Assistant with all kinds of document formats (Word, PowerPoint, meeting transcripts, etc.)

AI Assistant in Reader and Acrobat has guardrails in place so that all customers – from individuals to the largest enterprises – can use the features with confidence. Enterprise-grade security and information governance are available for large business customers.