App Watch: What’s New, Hot & Updated In The First Half Of March

The first half of March brought its share of fresh updates and clever improvements, and we’ve been keeping an eye on them.

Time to recap what’s been happening so far this month.

Adobe Firefly adds Quick Cut to auto generate a first video draft

Adobe just introduced Quick Cut inside Firefly’s video editor, a new AI feature that automatically builds a first draft from your footage and B roll. Instead of manually arranging clips and transitions, you can describe what you want in natural language and let the tool assemble a rough version for you.

Quick Cut trims irrelevant parts, combines different takes, and inserts suitable B roll to smooth transitions. You can also control settings like aspect ratio, pacing, and optional B roll through the prompt box. The feature works across a full project, a specific timeline, or selected clips, giving editors flexibility depending on their workflow.

👉 Learn more about Adobe Firefly’s new Quick Cut feature.

Zoom expands its platform with AI avatars and a new AI office suite

Zoom is rolling out a wave of new AI features, including photorealistic avatars that can represent you in meetings when you’re not camera ready. The avatars, first announced last year, can mimic your appearance, facial expressions, and lip movements, and they’re expected to start rolling out later this month for meetings and asynchronous video messages.

Alongside avatars, Zoom is building a full AI powered office suite with new tools called AI Docs, AI Slides, and AI Sheets. These apps can generate documents, presentations, or spreadsheets based on meeting transcripts and connected data sources, helping teams quickly turn discussions into working materials.

The company is also introducing new AI capabilities across its ecosystem, including a voice translator for meetings, an agent builder that lets users create custom AI assistants with simple prompts, and deeper integrations through AI Companion 3.0.

👉 Learn more about Zoom’s new AI features.

Photoshop gets a built-in AI assistant for faster image edits

Photoshop is getting a new AI assistant that lets users edit images using simple prompts. The feature, now rolling out in beta on the web and mobile apps, allows people to remove objects, adjust lighting, change colors, crop images, or transform backgrounds just by describing what they want.

Instead of digging through menus or tools, users can type instructions like adding a soft glow, enhancing shadows, or modifying the background for a different look. Adobe is also introducing AI markup, a feature where you can draw or mark elements directly on the image and ask the AI assistant to modify or remove them.

At the same time, Adobe is expanding the capabilities of Firefly, its generative media tool. New features include Generative Fill for adding or replacing objects, generative remove for deleting elements, generative expand for enlarging images, and generative upscale to improve resolution. Photoshop paid users will be able to generate unlimited edits with the AI assistant through April 9.

👉 Learn more about Photoshop’s AI assistant.

Google adds new Gemini AI features across Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive

Google is bringing a new wave of Gemini powered features to Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive, making it easier to generate content and organize work without leaving the apps. The new tools can create first drafts, slides, and spreadsheets by pulling context from your Gmail, Chat, and Drive files.

In Docs, a new “Help me create” tool lets you describe what you want and Gemini builds a formatted draft using relevant information from your files and conversations. You can then refine sections, improve clarity, or unify tone with a new “Match writing style” feature that helps keep documents consistent when multiple people are collaborating.

Sheets and Slides are also getting smarter. Gemini can generate full spreadsheets with data gathered from your emails and files, or build editable slides that match your presentation theme. Meanwhile, Drive is becoming more interactive with AI Overviews and a new “Ask Gemini in Drive” feature that lets you ask questions across your documents, emails, calendar, and the web.

👉 Learn more about Gemini features in Google Workspace.

Meta adds new scam detection alerts to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger

Meta is rolling out new scam detection tools across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger to help users spot suspicious activity before they interact with it. The goal is simple: warn people earlier, before scammers have a chance to trick them.

On Facebook, the company is testing alerts for suspicious friend requests. If a request comes from an account with warning signs like very few mutual friends or a location that doesn’t match typical activity, users will see a prompt encouraging them to review the request before accepting or blocking it.

WhatsApp will now show warnings when a device linking request looks suspicious, helping prevent scams where attackers try to connect their own device to someone else’s account. Meanwhile, Messenger is expanding its AI powered scam detection, which can flag risky conversations and suggest blocking or reporting accounts when scam patterns are detected.

👉 Learn more about Meta’s new scam detection tools.

Plenty of updates already, and we’re just halfway through March. Stay tuned to our blog for the next round of highlights at the end of the month.

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