Applications
Estée Lauder brushes up digital creativity with Adobe Firefly AI
MUMBAI: The world of beauty is getting a digital makeover as The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) partners with Adobe to redefine marketing campaigns using Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI suite. By integrating Firefly into its Creative Cloud workflows, ELC aims to speed up campaign execution, empower creative teams, and streamline content production across its prestigious brands, including Mac Clinique, and Jo Malone London.
With digital campaigns demanding hundreds of thousands of assets yearly, ELC is embracing AI-powered automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and refocus designers on crafting stunning, high-impact visuals. Firefly’s Generative Expand feature will ensure content resizes seamlessly for different digital platforms, enhancing ELC’s Beauty Reimagined strategy, its bold vision to become the world’s most consumer-centric prestige beauty brand.
“Maintaining mindshare on digital channels such as social media is important in the competitive beauty industry, but oftentimes the content requirements for each platform stresses our ability to deliver new campaigns,” said Mac Cosmetics vice president for global digital creative and brand image Justin Edwards. “The Mac Cosmetics team was the first to explore the potential of generative AI for the company through Adobe Firefly Services, and we believe it will remove hurdles that currently prevent our designers from focusing on their craft.”
“Adobe Firefly Services APIs surface decades of Adobe innovation across our foundational AI models and applications such as Photoshop and InDesign, to assist with daily tasks that are crucial but can often be repetitive and time-intensive,” said Adobe Genstudio and Firefly for Enterprise general manager Varun Parmar. “The Estée Lauder Companies have shown an incredibly compelling and practical application of generative AI, which allows design teams to focus more time on their craft and ideating eye catching creative for its portfolio of nearly 25 brands.”
“At The Estée Lauder Companies, we need to keep pace with a changing environment where an increasingly large share of transactions is happening through digital channels such as mobile devices,” said The Estée Lauder Companies vice president for creative center of excellence Yuri Ezhkov. “We have a trusted partner in Adobe to provide generative AI technologies that are safe for commercial use, with tools that enable our design teams to operate more nimbly and be free to focus on ideating.
Alongside AI adoption, ELC is revamping its Digital Asset Management (DAM) system using Adobe Experience Manager Assets to optimise image storage, search, and performance insights. This upgrade allows for faster content creation and real-time insights, ensuring that campaigns stay ahead of trends in the ever-evolving digital space.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
