The camera now tells you 'this shot is weak'
Seen from the street, here's the difference: Project Indigo's new feature critiques your photo before or after you shoot — framing, light, emotional impact. As Adobe Fellow Marc Levoy put it, most generative AI tools want you to 'find the right prompt'; Indigo instead gives you buttons — remove the object, blur the background, apply a watercolor effect.[1]
The engine underneath is interesting too: it runs on Google's Gemini-based Nano Banana, and Adobe says it's open to bolting on its own Firefly. So two rival companies' models can live in the same app — what matters to the user isn't which model, it's whether the button actually works.[1]
YouTube's definition of 'generic' might include you
My advice: don't panic, but don't skip reading it either. YouTube's new definition strips monetization from three things — template content, distressing content designed to manipulate, and content using an AI persona to cover health, finance or legal topics. Trust and safety chief Matt Halprin's line is blunt: 'That exact same tool can allow you to make lots of... very generic... content farming.'[2]
I'll confess, 'generic' is a slippery word — YouTube itself decides whose video counts as 'template' and whose counts as 'style.' If you're speeding up your channel with AI tools but still putting your own voice into it, you're probably fine; but if you're stamping out three videos from the same mold, expect a warning before the payout.[2]
Next test: does the button win, or does the voice?
Put the two stories side by side and here's the picture: on one side, a tool trying to make you a better photographer; on the other, a platform pushing you not to be 'generic.' Both are asking the same big question — does something made with AI's help still count as 'yours'?[1], [2]
In my July 19 column I wrote that even Gemini has a limit, that the assistant goes quiet when the power does. Today's lesson is similar: no matter how smart the tool gets, you're still the one choosing the frame or making the video generic. Pause a second before you hit the button, ask yourself what you actually want — then hit it.[1], [2], [3]