With Apple’s new Creator Studio Pro, AI becomes a tool to aid creativity, not replace it

AI applications that can create images, videos, songs, and more are becoming increasingly popular. But with Apple’s new Creator Studio Pro suite launchedavailable to the public on Wednesday, the tech giant is close to adding artificial intelligence as a tool that aids in the creation process, but is not trying to replace it.

Instead, Apple is putting forward a vision that suggests the productivity suite of the future is one that focuses on the needs of creators — whether they be filmmakers, musicians, artists, or anyone else involved in a creative industry of some kind — and enables them to be more efficient using AI.

Bringing AI into the world of creativity is difficult, given the backlash and even legal action from creators angry about training AI models on their work, then reproducing similar artistic or creative content in the output of AI systems.

However, Apple sees AI as a tool that handles more basic, tedious tasks — like creating a slideshow you can edit from your notes, extracting chord information from a song, searching through hours of video footage for the clip you need, changing the camera angle on your photos, and more.

The tools in Creator Studio Pro aren’t new, but they were never bundled as a subscription product, and it’s now available for $12.99 per month or $129 per year.

Subscription includes Final Cut Pro, Motion, and Compressor for video editing; Logic Pro and Mainstage for music creation; Pixelmator Pro photo editing tool; And a host of exclusive features in Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform. The collection also includes the newly launched Pixelmator Pro app for iPad.

While Apple’s traditional productivity software apps haven’t caught up with those of Google and Microsoft, the tech giant has always found more success in creative fields. With the addition of AI features, the company will likely see the potential to make its creative software more accessible to those who aren’t quite professionals — such as an independent musician or artist who wants to improve their marketing and sales, those who quickly compile video footage to post on social media, or those who want to create music or art and edit the output.

Whether Apple tools are the right tools for the job compared to Adobe products will depend on the user’s specific needs and familiarity with professional creative tools.

Each tool in the suite received its own series of upgrades timed with this launch, both for AI and otherwise. Notable additions include:

• Final Cut Pro: AI-powered text searching to find the right audio clip across hours of footage; AI-powered visual search assistant, which allows users to search for something or action to add to their timeline; Rhythm Detection to adjust the tempo of music, which uses an AI model to analyze music tracks; The new Montage Maker tool on iPad makes it easier to create standout videos from your footage; Support multi-selection for batch editing, wallpaper export, and external display playback on iPad; Access content to enhance your videos, such as graphics, dynamic titles, and more.

• Logic Pro: A new synth player feature, built on demos, adds a virtual session player that can play keyboard and bass parts. Chord ID, which uses AI to analyze audio to extract chord information; Audio Packs and Product Packs come to your Mac with an expanded audio library; The iPad app is also getting new features like Quick Swipe Comping to compile recordings in different ways than they were captured, and an AI-powered understanding of the loop library to find the right audio.

• Pixelmator Pro for Mac and iPad: The app, now available on iPad, already offers a number of AI features such as those that enhance images (Super Resolution), provide composition suggestions (auto crop), remove artifacts, retouch, and more. With the launch of Creator Suite, the app gets a new Liquid Glass design to match the rest of Apple’s software, a new Warp tool for resampling layers, and Warp-powered mockups for previewing clothing or other product designs in real-world images.

• Keyword, pages, numbers, and freeform: These general-purpose productivity apps are gaining new features for Creator Studio subscribers, including new premium templates and themes in Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, and a library of images and graphics across all four apps, called the Content Hub; AI-powered image creation and remixing allows creators to choose from preset composition options to change the style, orientation, or camera angle of their photos, graphics, icons, or any other visual concept; Other AI tools can enhance images (using the Super Resolution feature) or provide composition suggestions.

• KeywordSpecifically, it adds several AI features, including a new tool that uses your text notes as a starting point to create a slideshow from scratch; AI can also generate presenter notes and clean up your slide content.

• numbersMeanwhile, it can use artificial intelligence to analyze patterns in spreadsheet data and make suggestions for table contents (magic fill). It can also create a formula to describe what was created, so you can see how it works.

Apple says it will continue to offer its creative apps As standalone downloadsExisting users will still get updates, including these new features. Meanwhile, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and Freeform will remain free apps, but new premium features will be locked behind a subscription. It’s an interesting option to let users choose to purchase apps outright, as before, because that sets Apple’s offerings apart from others, like Adobe.

Additionally, Apple allows users to share their apps through Family Sharing with up to five family members, which Adobe does not offer. Users can also cancel their subscription at any time, without penalty. However, Adobe remains a fierce competitor with its expansive and detailed tools, which also work on iOS.

Some AI features are powered by Apple Intelligence, such as visual search and text search in Final Cut Pro, which runs locally on the device. Others involve using third parties, like OpenAI, which powers things like advanced image generation, Keynote slides, and presenter notes. Creator Studio’s AI features are processed on-device or use a special relay to anonymize traffic. Apple says these protections mean users’ content remains private and is never used for AI training.