Exclusive: How Adobe showcases its innovation engine

Adobe uses its "Sneaks" programme to present early-stage ideas from across the business, offering a public view into how internal concepts are explored and refined before reaching products.

Open innovation

"Great ideas can come from anywhere within the company and sneaks is the physical manifestation of that on stage," said Eric Matisoff, Principal Evangelist, Adobe.

The programme invites contributions from across Adobe, including engineers, researchers, product managers and interns. Submissions are reviewed and narrowed down to a small number of live demonstrations at Adobe Summit.

Matisoff, who has overseen the programme for a decade, said it reflects the breadth of thinking across the organisation rather than focusing on any one function.

Selection focus

"It needs to be engaging and powerful and innovative, but at the same time, it needs to be simple," said Matisoff.

Projects are assessed not only for technical merit but also for how clearly they can be communicated. Each team has four minutes to demonstrate its idea, requiring a concise and accessible narrative.

Sneaks content is kept separate from official product announcements.

"We want to make sure that we are distancing ourselves from anything that we announce on the keynote stage," said Matisoff.

Where similar ideas emerge, Adobe has occasionally explored combining them, though time constraints often limit that approach.

"We have toyed around with bringing a couple of those ideas together in order to kind of Frankenstein a sneak," added Matisoff.

Global stage

The programme draws contributors from Adobe's global workforce.

"This year we have only one presenter from the US, with others from Canada, Switzerland and India," said Matisoff.

Presentations are delivered by the people who built the technologies, many of whom have limited experience speaking to large audiences.

"Most of them have never been on stage before, let alone in front of 15,000 people while getting heckled by a professional comedian," said Matisoff.

Celebrity co-hosts interact with the demonstrations in real time, offering an unscripted perspective.

"They are acting on behalf of the audience as a normal human being seeing these technologies for the very first time," added Matisoff.

From concept to product

Although Sneaks is not a product launch platform, some ideas move into production after further development and testing.

"When there is legitimate excitement around a sneaks technology, we have taken them to other events and within a month or two ended up getting pushed live to production," said Matisoff.

This process involves rebuilding and validating the technology to meet production standards.

"We did not just copy and paste this code, but built it, hardened it, put it through the rigorous QA test that we have at Adobe," added Matisoff.

Several Adobe offerings, including customer journey analytics and features within Adobe Experience Manager, began as Sneaks concepts.

Live demos

Sneaks demonstrations rely on working prototypes, introducing an element of unpredictability.

"The closest thing we have had to that, we have had a few hiccups along the way," said Matisoff.

In one instance, technical issues forced the team to adapt during a live session, adjusting how the demo was controlled on stage.

"It was super funny, and it worked out really well," added Matisoff.

The format remains consistent: a curated set of ideas presented live, offering a snapshot of how concepts are developed within Adobe before potential productisation.

"Things are moving so fast that we are constantly thinking about how to make sure this is the latest and greatest," said Matisoff.