Adobe 99U Conference Returns in 2026 With AI, Taste and Craft at Its Center

The 13th edition of Adobe's 99U Conference took place in 2026, returning after a five-year hiatus and gathering industry leaders and creative thinkers for a single day of talks, panels and workshops. AI dominated the program, framed less as a speed tool than as a prompt for rethinking human judgment, taste and discernment. Speakers from the Adobe Creative Collective included Stefan Sagmeister, Tina Roth Eisenberg and Scott Belsky. Adobe research cited at the event found that most creatives are still determining how AI fits into their practice, and several speakers treated that uncertainty as productive rather than a problem to resolve. Rather than adopting blanket AI policies, participants argued for deliberate, selective adoption tied to the parts of a process a practitioner actually values. Analogue-minded creatives defended friction, likening the happy accidents of print and physical methods to imperfections that automation can produce, and proposed deliberately introducing inconvenience — sketching before generating, or imposing time limits. Selection, not access, was repeatedly named the defining skill. Tina Roth Eisenberg said that living a creative courageous life requires a support system that has your back, adding that creativity and community are not nice to haves but the infrastructure that makes meaningful change possible. The conference was sponsored content.