If your content isn’t moving the needle this week, this newsletter is for you.

👋 Welcome back to Creator Toolkit, where we turn ideas into action, audiences, and results that matter every week.

This week, I’ve been soaking up the highlights from Adobe MAX (more below). It was this update that literally made my jaw drop.

I’m also gearing up for a panel on Tuesday about how podcasts can help you grow your audience and engage your community.

📍 In this issue:

• Top Adobe MAX takeaways for creators

• Why employees are the new influencers

Let’s get into it 👇

Have you been thinking about starting a podcast or trying to grow the one you already have?

I’ll be on a panel with Ryan Jon Dunn (co-host of the global success that is Toni and Ryan) and Lizzie Young (CEO, CRA), sharing practical strategies to help you grow your audience, engage your community, and make your podcast actually work for you!

🗓️ Tuesday, 4th November 2025

📍 Online event

Tickets can be found here 

Quick Fire 🧨

• Adobe’s new AI audio tools can add soundtracks and voice-overs to videos

• Steven Bartlett's company steven.com hits $425mn valuation after investment round

• Shorts now make more money for YouTube than long-form videos

• Gen Z is cutting back on doomscrolling

Adobe MAX dropped some serious tools

Adobe MAX is the company’s annual creative conference, which wrapped up last week, bringing together thousands of designers, filmmakers, and creators to showcase what’s next in creative technology.

I’ve been following along through people who were there (like The Verge and The Publish Press), and it’s clear Adobe’s making a big play to bring pro-level tools to everyday creators.

A few things that stood out:

1. Adobe + YouTube = a powerful move for Shorts.

   The new Create for YouTube Shorts feature in Premiere lets you edit, use templates, and upload directly to Shorts (no more bouncing between apps.)

2. AI tools are getting more intuitive.

   “AI Object Mask” can now automatically identify and track people or objects in video frames. A huge time-saver for editors.

3. Brand-safe AI models are here.

   Firefly Custom Models enables brands to train AI on their own assets, ensuring content remains consistent with their look and feel.

4. Adobe Express is getting ChatGPT integration.

   Soon, you’ll be able to design and edit right inside ChatGPT (wild).

5. Reshoots might become extinct.

   “Project Clean Take” is a tool that helps you fix flubbed lines or numbers in post, without touching the original footage.

Adobe is leaning into accessibility and speed by making pro-level creation feel more intuitive for creators who don’t have a production team behind them.

Instagram

• is rolling out the ability to tune its algorithm, starting with Reels. You can add or remove topics based on your interests to customise your feed.

Threads 

• introduces “ghost posts” or disappearing Threads that last for 24 hours.

YouTube

• shared 5 features to help creators improve their content on TV:

  • Thumbnail file limit will increase from 2MB to 50MB (4K-resolution)

  • AI-powered higher resolutions for videos

  • Immersive channel previews on the homepage

  • Contextual search on TVs (channel results will be prioritised)

  • QR code scans on tagged shopping videos instantly open the product page

TikTok

• released new AI-creator tools, including:

  • Smart Split automatically clips, reframes, captions, and transcribes longer content into multiple short videos.

  • AI Outline, which generates video titles, hashtags, hooks & outlines from a prompt or by selecting a topic in Creator Search Insights.