Adobe’s Acquisition of Rephrase
After a five-day power struggle at OpenAI, Sam Altman has been reinstated as its leader. Meanwhile, Adobe has made a move to enhance its generative AI capabilities. According to a report in the Economic Times, Adobe has internally announced the acquisition of Rephrase, a California-based text-to-video company. While the financial details of the deal remain undisclosed, this acquisition is expected to strengthen Adobe’s suite of Creative Cloud products. Over the past year, Adobe has been gradually incorporating generative AI upgrades into its product offerings. With the addition of Rephrase, Adobe aims to provide its customers with the ability to effortlessly generate high-quality videos from text alone.
“The Rephrase.ai team’s expertise in generative AI video and audio technology and experience-building text-to-video generator tools will extend our generative video capabilities — and enable us to deliver more value to our customers faster – all within our industry-leading creative applications.”
Rephrase’s CEO, Ashray Malhotra, announced the acquisition through a post on LinkedIn. However, he refrained from naming Adobe as the acquiring party, simply referring to it as a “leading tech giant”. In response to further inquiries, Malhotra stated that he is not authorized to disclose additional information at this stage.
Rephrase’s Offerings and Implications for Adobe
Rephrase, founded in 2019 by Ashray Malhotra, Nisheeth Lahoti, and Shivam Mangla, provides enterprises with Rephrase Studio, a platform that allows users to effortlessly create professional-looking videos featuring digital avatars. Users can choose from various video templates, select an avatar with their preferred voice, and add the required content. With a simple click, Rephrase Studio automatically syncs the script with the chosen avatar, providing a seamless video creation experience. Customization options include resizing the avatar, changing the background, adjusting pauses, and incorporating custom audio.
“These are early days for Generative AI, and early days for everything that we plan to build in Generative AI. Never been more excited to get back to building. We are excited to announce the launch of our new project.”
Within four years, Rephrase successfully attracted over 50,000 customers and raised almost $14 million in funding from investors such as Red Ventures and Lightspeed India. Initially, Rephrase gained recognition for its ability to assist enterprises and influencers in creating customized avatars for personalized business videos. The acquisition of Rephrase by Adobe will transfer the company’s product capabilities and a majority of its team to Adobe, further expanding Adobe’s generative AI video offerings.
Adobe Creative Cloud, which has historically been the dominant platform for digital art and media, currently offers six key products for audio and video-related work: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Character Animator, Animate, and Media Encoder. These products are utilized by millions of professionals and amateurs to create, edit, and share digital content. Recently, Adobe has been pushing the boundaries of generative AI with various product updates. For example, the introduction of Firefly, an AI engine for image generation, has allowed users to add or remove objects from images by simply describing the desired changes in words.
During its annual Max conference, Adobe showcased multiple experimental generative AI-powered video features. These include the ability to upscale videos, modify textures and objects using text prompts, and composite elements from separate videos into one scene. While the timeline for incorporating these features into future releases is uncertain, Rephrase’s expertise and digital avatar-based capabilities align well with Adobe’s generative AI vision.
“Adobe has a strong track record of accelerating growth through both organic and inorganic innovation. We are always on the lookout for new talent and technology that supports our strategy and creates more value for our stakeholders.”
As the world of generative AI continues to evolve, Adobe remains committed to expanding its capabilities and staying at the forefront of the industry. The acquisition of Rephrase represents another step towards achieving this goal, further solidifying Adobe’s position as an industry leader in creative software.
