Adobe plans to give more than 27 million eligible citizens and residents in Saudi Arabia a year of free access to its artificial intelligence-powered creative tools under an expanded partnership with the kingdom’s technology ministry and state-backed AI company HUMAIN.
People aged 13 and older will be eligible for 12 months of free access to Adobe Firefly Standard and premium features in Adobe Express. The company said the offer would become available by the end of 2026.
Adobe valued the commitment at more than $4 billion. The figure refers to the estimated value of the subscriptions and features being made available, rather than a cash investment, government payment or transfer of funds.
Saudi-Focused Image Model Under Development
A central part of the agreement is an image-generation model being developed jointly by Adobe and HUMAIN through Adobe Firefly Foundry. The companies said the model would accept Arabic-language prompts and produce images informed by Saudi cultural context, visual references and local creative requirements.
The model is intended to address a persistent challenge in generative AI: systems trained primarily on global or English-language material can struggle with regional clothing, architecture, customs and written Arabic. Localized development may improve how Saudi users express ideas through image-generation tools.
The project builds on a partnership Adobe and HUMAIN announced at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in November 2025. Under the original agreement, the companies outlined plans to develop AI models and applications for the Arab world by combining Adobe Firefly Foundry with HUMAIN’s Arabic-first ALLAM model and regional infrastructure. Qualcomm was named as the technology provider for data-center systems designed to support large-scale image and video generation. In August 2026, Qualcomm said Adobe would move regional AI data-captioning workloads to HUMAIN’s locally hosted infrastructure, using Qualcomm-powered AI accelerators.
Training and Start-Up Support Included
The expanded partnership also involves Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT). Adobe said eligible start-ups and early-stage entrepreneurs participating in the ministry’s Center of Digital Entrepreneurship and The Garage would receive a year of access to selected creative tools, training and technical expertise beginning in early 2027.
Saudi citizens and residents will also be offered free learning courses through Adobe Digital Academy. The program covers creative, marketing and AI-related skills, adding a training component to an initiative that might otherwise be limited to software distribution. Participation targets, completion requirements and measures for evaluating the program’s results have not been published.
Adobe also introduced Modern Standard Arabic support for Adobe Express on desktop, web and iOS. The update includes right-to-left text handling, Arabic typography, editing controls and templates adapted for Saudi users.
Partnership Broadens Adobe’s Saudi AI Reach
The agreement gives Adobe an opportunity to place its tools in front of a large new group of potential users at a time when competition in AI-assisted design is increasing. Free access could help the company build familiarity with Firefly and Express among students, small businesses and independent creators.
HUMAIN brings government-backed infrastructure and regional AI development to the arrangement. The company is owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and works across data centers, cloud platforms, AI models and enterprise applications. Its role in the Adobe project covers both the locally tuned image model and the infrastructure intended to support AI workloads in the kingdom.
The consumer offer, start-up support and Saudi-focused model give the partnership a broader scope than a conventional software trial. Adobe is linking access to its products with local training, infrastructure and Arabic-language development, creating several routes for people and businesses to begin using its creative technology.
