Creating Assets at Scale: Through AI Automation
Program
Fueling the Journey
Brand(s)
M·A·C x Adobe
Results
1,250 hours of production time saved
2 First in the world Adobe x Figma plugins
2 Adobe Firefly Services (AI) Integrations
86 Users across 6 brands
My Role
Creative Leadership in Systems
AI Integration
Workflow Automation
Challenge
M·A·C was generating thousands of unique digital creative assets each year for ecommerce, retail, and global channel partners. For each product SKU, multiple image variants and formats were required across web, mobile, and retail placements — all generated manually via separate tools. This created a production bottleneck that consumed hundreds of hours annually, slowed global deployment, and made consistent visual quality difficult to maintain across markets.
For each product and sku, 9 image formats are processed, exported and require specific naming conventions.
Each product comes out of the camera with differing white space around and shot in different aspect ratios.
The diagram above shows padding required for consistency across each brand.com and retailer channel around the world.
Adobe built a solution for the above opportunity that batch processes with configurable image aspect ratios, offers support for Multi-layering Image files, and diverse format types, Customizable template frameworks for scalable deployment.
Strategy
The objective was to transform the asset pipeline into a scalable, automated, and AI-enabled workflow that could support high-volume content production without sacrificing quality, brand consistency, or speed.
Key strategic pillars included:
Integrating design and asset systems across tools (Adobe DAM, Photoshop, and Figma)
Automating repetitive production tasks using AI and custom plugins
Empowering creative teams with scalable tools that work across brands and markets
The vision was not simply to create assets faster, but to embed automation and consistency into the enterprise creative workflow.
Execution
The program unfolded in two major phases:
Workflow Integration & Automation Enablement
Worked with Adobe and internal teams to connect the Adobe Digital Asset Management (DAM) system directly to Figma, eliminating manual transfers between platforms. This was done through custom tooling that tethered asset metadata and image files from DAM into the creative system.AI-Assisted Production Tools
Led development of three first-in-the-world plugins that leveraged Adobe Firefly and custom logic inside Figma:Asset Mesh — connected DAM to Figma to reduce manual retrieval and upload time
Adsemble — automated layout production using AI-driven transformations
Firefly GenAI Integration — intelligently cropped and generated multiple layouts for dozens of formats
These tools were built with internal specification and partnered development support, enabling teams to produce hundreds of assets in minutes rather than weeks.
Adobe, the supplier of MAC's DAM (Digital Asset Management), the central source of asset truth is an integral partner. Significant time was lost retrieving assets from the DAM and incorporating them into Figma. I requested from Adobe the creation of a plugin that would link Figma to the Adobe DAM, and save the MAC Global Creative team over 400 hours each year.
Asset Mesh (above) connects Adobe DAM to Figma, a first in the world, created for M·A·C and Estée Lauder Companies
Results
The impact was immediate and measurable across scale, quality, and workforce efficiency:
1,250+ production hours saved per year through workflow automation
3 proprietary Adobe + Figma plugins — world-first solutions tailored to M·A·C’s creative technology stack
2 Adobe Firefly service integrations that brought generative AI into production workflows
86 creative users across six brands now enabled with the new tooling ecosystem
The plugins didn’t just remove manual steps — they established a repeatable, scalable model for enterprise asset production that could be shared across brands and markets.
MAC produces hundreds of assets across dozens of campaigns each year, many of which are adaptations and templated (see above). I partnered with Adobe to create a plugin to automate this process. With AI Machine Learning, Adobe leveraged Firefly Services to detect subject matter to make crops in layout based on our specifications. With this tool, MAC can automate the production of 5 layout templates of any type (leaderboards, skyscrapers, standards) within seconds. The production of hundreds of assets that would have taken weeks was not automated and cut down saving between 500-600 hours of work per year.
Adsemble (above): Automation of assets at scale across templates (5 at a time) within Figma using AI and Machine Learning
Executive Summary
“Assets at Scale” represents a strategic turning point in global creative operations. It moves beyond traditional project work into creative capability building — turning manual bottlenecks into automated systems powered by AI, tooling, and cross-platform integration. The result is a robust, scalable, and performance-ready infrastructure that supports M·A·C’s global content needs with far greater speed, consistency, and agility.
Team Credits: Jeffrey Blum, Aunnop Boonthong, Carol Orlando, Yuri Ezkov, and Adobe Forward Deploy Team
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