Adobe Max 2024: What’s new in Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and audio workflows

Adobe Max 2024 unveiled powerful new features and enhancements across Premiere Pro, After Effects, and audio tools. Dive in and discover how these updates can transform your creative workflow.

Premiere Pro is Adobe’s flagship video editor. During Adobe MAX 2024, an array of new feature upgrades launched, including some that use Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI model.

With Premiere Pro’s new feature, Generative Extend, you can extend footage by adding frames with AI. What does that mean? Imagine a clip that is too short for your intended purpose. You might’ve deliberately cut the footage too short. Or perhaps your camera cut too soon or started too late. Or, you might’ve rocked your camera and introduced a visual defect at a critical moment.

With Generative Extend, Firefly AI analyzes your clip and creates extra frames. In the current release, this should provide an additional two seconds of video above and beyond what your camera actually captured. Generative Extend is planned as a foundation for future AI-based upgrades and features. It’s available now via beta release. In other words, if you’re a Creative Cloud subscriber, you can test-drive Generative Extend now.

Another significant feature preview emerged with new object selection features. These aren’t available in beta but are expected to be released in 2025. In short, these features let you select objects in a video and track them with a mask. It’s a familiar workflow for Adobe After Effects users but hasn’t reached Premiere Pro yet.

Another major revamp arrived for Premiere Pro in the form of a new color management tool, also available in beta. Think of this as an upgrade aimed at DaVinci Resolve users. DaVinci has long been noted for powerful color features, and now Adobe has answered with its own.

Color management in Premiere Pro works directly with footage imported from your camera. The goal is more lifelike footage that’s also more versatile, accelerating colour correction and grading. RAW or log footage can be transformed into common color spaces (like HDR) upon import.

You’ll also see the launch of preset editing for colors. This will sound familiar if you use Adobe’s photo apps, like Lightroom and Photoshop. These let you make color adjustments with pre-built settings. This is notable for two reasons: first, it’s fast. Second, it enables you to edit the footage in a consistent visual style.

Performance and workflow enhancements were also rolled out. Let’s start with performance. Both exporting and playback speeds have been enhanced. This means you can export videos in less time than before, and previews take less time to render. Users will also note optimized CODEC support for ProRes, HEVC, and AVC formats.

Last but not least, Premiere Pro’s interface has been updated. The focus here was on Premiere Pro looking more similar to other Adobe Creative Cloud suite apps. Like many other popular apps, you can now toggle between Light and Dark display modes—those of us who stare at screens for hours will appreciate that option! Plus, fonts have been optimized for readability while maintaining the Creative Cloud familial look.

Adobe After Effects also gained its share of new features announced during Adobe MAX 2024. First, users will notice a modified UI (user interface). This change is somewhat similar to that made in Premiere Pro. Across the board, Adobe has worked on commonizing apps across the Creative Cloud family: After Effects now looks more like Premiere in terms of the visual layout, and both those apps look more like other CC apps. While this isn’t a huge change, consistency is valued by many people and often flattens the learning curve for newer users.

Many editing tools are now grouped into the Properties panel, giving us a “toolbox” of oft-used features in one place.

Speed enhancements have also been rolled out. In Adobe’s announcement, speeds of up to 4x faster than prior versions (for Windows systems) were mentioned. Again, the goal is to speed up editors’ workflows and allow more time for creative editing.

Moving beyond enhancements to added features, the most noteworthy announcement was a new 3D workspace. Other apps had to handle most of the work on 3D visuals in prior years. You could work with them in After Effects, but changes happened elsewhere. With these new tools, you can import 3D models and edit their 3D animations in After Effects. Expanded support for 3D shadows is also new for After Effects 2025.

Another area that was focused on during Adobe MAX 2024 was animation. Remember the earlier mention of Premiere Pro color presets? You‘ll now find animation presets in After Effects, allowing for faster adding of motion graphics to your work. And again—a hallmark of presets—you gain repeatability, adding the same effects over and over.

Counters are also new to After Effects animation. Think of countdown clocks, timers, and similar designs, now natively available and customizable.

So far, we’ve stayed on the topic of Adobe’s video apps, Premiere Pro and After Effects. But it’s important to remember that audio is integral to any video. With that in mind, audio features also enjoyed some attention at Adobe MAX 2024.

Remember Generative Extend, the Firefly AI tool in Premiere Pro? We mentioned that it will generate up to two seconds of additional video frames. But this also works for audio. Generative Extend can produce up to ten seconds of audio in beta form.

Important caveats are worth noting: it can’t generate speech, and music is not currently supported. However, generating background audio can often be the most formidable challenge in audio post-production.

Also unveiled was a sneak preview of what Adobe calls Project Super Sonic. This is a future set of tools aimed at AI-powered audio creation for your videos. At its core, think of text-to-audio features (something you’ll have seen in other products but unheard of for Adobe until now). The intent here is to streamline the audio creation process for your videos, handing you a future where you’re not consulting with a voiceover artist or trying over and over to find a quiet place to record yourself.

Sneak peeks of Super Sonic went beyond text-to-audio. One preview showed off “object recognition” for audio generation, the idea here is that you can click on an object in your video and generate a relevant sound effect. Consider a future where you can click on a racing car you’ve videoed and get engine noises generated for you.

Finally, Super Sonic has a mode in which you can generate sound effects with your own voice. You can imitate a sound you want in your video, and Adobe’s tools will generate that sound properly.

These features are down the road without a set release date or fully announced app integrations. But they’re a notable sneak peak of what Adobe is working on in audio, powered by generative AI.

As we wrap up our exploration of Adobe’s latest innovations, unveiled at Adobe MAX 2024, there’s plenty to be excited about!

With AI-powered features like Generative Extend, enhanced color management tools, and exciting audio capabilities on the horizon, Adobe continues to innovate. These updates to Premiere Pro, After Effects, and audio tools streamline workflows and open up new creative possibilities for users.

Envato’s professionally designed video templates enable you to get the most out of the Adobe suite. With templates for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and more, you can create excellent results in half the time. Don’t forget to check out our brand-new Envato video YouTube channel, your go-to resource for mastering the art of filmmaking! Finally, explore Adobe Max updates for Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.