Adobe offers Photoshop, Acrobat and Firefly AI for free to these students in India, details here
Adobe has announced free access to its flagship apps for Indian students enrolled in accredited higher education institutions. The offering includes Photoshop, Acrobat and Firefly AI. The company is also partnering with NASSCOM to expand this initiative. Here’s what we know.
Adobe has announced that it will provide free access to its flagship tools to students who are part of recognized higher education institutions in India. The announcement came at the India AI Impact Summit on February 19. Adobe has described the initiative as a “strategic investment” aimed at accelerating AI-powered creativity and productivity in the country.
In the announcement, Adobe highlighted that along with providing the software, the company will also provide a curriculum to train students to use these tools. The US-based tech giant said its “AI-first” offering will be available free of cost to students of 15,000 schools and 500 colleges that have Content Creator Labs – a government initiative announced in the Union Budget 2026. The program is designed to support job creation in the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics (AVGC) sectors by 2030.
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Shantanu Narayan, CEO of Adobe, said, “Adobe is expanding creativity opportunities for millions of students across India, empowering them with AI skills, further accelerating Prime Minister Modi’s vision.”
The program will be implemented in partnership with NASSCOM FutureSkills Prime, a national digital skills initiative in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. This collaboration is expected to provide free, industry-aligned courses and certificates to learners with an emphasis on AI-first learning. The training modules will be tailored to support a range of areas from graphic design and animation to marketing and technology.
A key aspect of the program is offering direct access to the company’s generative AI platform Adobe Firefly, which integrates models from leading AI partners including Google, OpenAI, and Runway.
At the India AI Impact Summit, Adobe also showcased ‘Kathavatra’, a series of AI-powered short films based on Indian folklore created in partnership with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The broader initiative meets the Government of India’s goal of creating two million jobs in AVGC by 2030 and serves as an extension of Adobe’s Digital Academy career path programs in India.
