The AI-Powered PDF Marks the End of an Era (wired.com) 30
The era of software without embedded AI assistants is increasingly ending as Adobe launches Acrobat Studio, adding collaborative AI workspaces to the 32-year-old PDF format. The new platform allows users to upload multiple documents into "PDF spaces" where personalized chatbot assistants parse and answer questions about their contents.
Adobe began integrating generative AI into Acrobat last year and now positions this release as the format's biggest transformation since its 1993 debut. The shift arrives amid growing user fatigue with AI features proliferating across everyday applications -- a Pew Research Center report found US adults more concerned than excited about AI's impact on their lives. Adobe's move cements 2025 as the year generative AI became inescapable in essential software, fundamentally altering how users interact with documents that once replicated the familiarity of paper.
Adobe began integrating generative AI into Acrobat last year and now positions this release as the format's biggest transformation since its 1993 debut. The shift arrives amid growing user fatigue with AI features proliferating across everyday applications -- a Pew Research Center report found US adults more concerned than excited about AI's impact on their lives. Adobe's move cements 2025 as the year generative AI became inescapable in essential software, fundamentally altering how users interact with documents that once replicated the familiarity of paper.
The end of PDF (Score:4, Insightful)
If a PDF isn't fixed then you might as well go back to screenshots. Seems absurd to not make this a .pdf2 or something where standard .pdf's can be reliably considered a reference document.
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If a PDF isn't fixed then you might as well go back to screenshots.
The key difference is that you can't easily copy text from a screenshot. You have to use OCR, which is no where near as accurate or convenient.
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As I read the summary they're basically allowing you to use a collection of documents and search them with AI.
I don't actually on the face of it hate this (though it being cloud only seems annoying).
I can upload a bunch of immutable documents to a space called "project xyz", and then query them as a whole using AI.
Obviously the value is in the quality of the implementation, but this seems like a nice tool and doesn't seem to alter PDF at all.
More and more control (Score:3)
Increasingly, corporations and broligarchs are intent on seeing, recording, stealing, meddling in, fucking with, monetizing and rent-seeking on EVERYTHING we do, whether it's preparing a document or walking down the fucking street. Goddammit, I'm getting mightily sick of this utter shit. Where are the torches and pitchforks?
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Increasingly, corporations and broligarchs are intent on seeing, recording, stealing, meddling in, fucking with, monetizing and rent-seeking on EVERYTHING we do, whether it's preparing a document or walking down the fucking street. Goddammit, I'm getting mightily sick of this utter shit. Where are the torches and pitchforks?
You would think people would start backing away from tech, with as much as it's started to be used as nothing more than a tool of oppression. But it doesn't seem to be penetrating the public conscience. People are still clinging to their gadgets, and buying up new ones as quick as they can, regardless of how much it's being used as a method of control. It's damned depressing, even if it is vaguely dark-comedic.
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You would think people would start backing away from tech, with as much as it's started to be used as nothing more than a tool of oppression.
Yeah, it seems that convenience beats freedom every time. Some of that's just human nature, but a disturbing amount of it is the result of effective propaganda going back at least a century. Or should that be "at least a millennium"...
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Where are the torches and pitchforks?
Aisle 5, across from the trebuchet display
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Re: More and more control (Score:2)
Yes it's called property rights
The renter economy is merely the natural outcome of property rights.
Misleading title, it's Acrobat not PDF. (Score:4, Informative)
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You don't edit the PDF. You use the original document and turn that into a PDF.
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You ask the creator for the original document.
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Can I get a 20 on your thinkmeat, good buddy? (Score:2)
In other words (Score:2)
Adobe is using customers to train AI for free.
Hey Adobe how about using that fancy AI to speed up OCR or even loading the damn file faster? Shit still loads and scrolls as fast as it did on a 486. I read a lot of datasheets and Okular is better than anything else out there.
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Okular is KDE, though, which comes with a lot of baggage. I prefer Evince or epdfview, they have far fewer dependencies. On Windows, use SumatraPDF.
Why use Acrobat? (Score:3)
And the PowerPDF Migration Continues... (Score:2)
Been moving PLENTY of my clients over to PowerPDF from Acrobat. $179 one-time, no AI garbage, no half-dozen services sending notification nags, and really the only function that's keeping anyone on Acrobat is the send-and-track functionality, which is admittedly a bit more polished than PowerPDF's analogue.
Seriously, Adobe as a whole is coasting on inertia at this point; nearly everything in their portfolio has viable replacements in one form or another.
Really dumb wording (Score:2)
"The era of software without embedded AI assistants is increasingly ending" is a really dumb way of saying that applications are increasingly using AI.
"Personalized Chatbot Assistants" (Score:3)
They should make it appear as a cartoon paperclip.
It looks like you're reading a PDF.
Would you like help?
PDF is a standard (Score:3)
Drama! (Score:2)
Neither is AI inevitable for PDF tools, nor is it the end of the PDF era. And most users neither use adobe tools to generate PDF (I think most PDF are autogenerated today), nor read them using adobe tool (but just use their browsers).
The cloud is a trap (Score:2)
Run Away!
I don't want to pay a subscription to "upload multiple documents into PDF spaces"
So... (Score:2)
...it can fill out my tax-forms?