Adobe is adding a new AI feature to Adobe Illustrator that tackles a familiar bit of grind for illustrators, making it one of the few AI tools everyone can agree is a good addition. Called Turntable, it’s been around since it first appeared as a MAX Sneak at Adobe MAX, and it stood out back then for the simple reason that it felt useful. It’s a tool designed to ease the workload, not add to it, and to open up 2D artists to 3D techniques and uses.
The idea is simple enough, as it takes a single vector illustration and automatically generates multiple angles, up to 74 views, including full rotations and vertical tilts. The key detail is that these aren’t flattened renders, each version stays as an editable vector, so you can still adjust lines, colours and details rather than starting again from scratch. This is AI, but not in the way we’ve become used to, as it appears to use AI to infer missing geometry to generate new views while retaining detail, colour and structure.
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Turntable is 3D art, in Illustrator
Adobe’s new Turntable tool shifts that balance a bit by enabling you to stay in Illustrator while opening up a more spatial way of thinking. You’re still drawing in 2D, but you can see how your work behaves across multiple angles and how it might translate into motion, which changes how you approach a design. It’s not just about speed, it’s about perspective.
That sense of perspective is where Turntable’s interest comes into its own, as generating those views quickly lets you see more potential uses for a piece of artwork, whether that’s animation, different styles, or adapting assets for other formats. Because everything remains editable, those outputs are something you can keep shaping.
There’s also a natural link to motion, as support for Adobe After Effects makes it easier to move from static artwork into animation without reworking assets or breaking your workflow. For anyone moving between illustration and motion design, that kind of continuity matters.
A gateway to 3D art
More broadly, Turntable nudges 2D artists toward some of the advantages of 3D without forcing a full switch in tools, ways of thinking, or ways of working. It expands what’s possible without adding much friction, which is usually the point where new features either stick or get ignored.
Turntable is releasing at a time when there’s a lot of noise around AI in creative tools, whether that’s Adobe’s Firefly or DLSS 5 for gaming and game development. Where Turntable feels different, and what stood out during that initial demo at Adobe MAX, is that this feels like a practical use of the tech, something that supports the way artists already work rather than trying to replace it. Giving illustrators more control, more options, and more ways to develop their own work still counts for something.
Turntable is part of a broader set of updates to Illustrator, alongside performance improvements and features like Generative Shape Fill, but it’s one of the more grounded additions. Less about changing how you create, certainly not replacing the artist in the creative process, and is more about removing a few of the slower steps along the way.
