Creative professionals using Arm-based Windows devices—such as the newly released Snapdragon-powered Copilot+ laptops—can now begin testing native versions of four major Adobe applications: Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, and Media Encoder. Adobe has rolled out beta builds of these programs that are optimized to run natively on Arm processors, a significant development for users in the video and audio production space who rely on performance-intensive tools. As The Verge reports, this marks an important expansion in Adobe’s support for Windows on Arm, though the beta status comes with notable caveats and limitations.
While the arrival of these apps signals progress, each beta still lacks full feature parity with their x86 counterparts. For instance, the Premiere Pro beta on Arm currently does not support third-party extensions, hardware-accelerated encoding and decoding for popular formats like H.264 and HEVC in MP4 containers, or ProRes RAW footage—key components that many professionals depend on. After Effects, Audition, and Media Encoder share similar limitations. Adobe has acknowledged these missing features and noted that they are on the roadmap for future updates, but there is no confirmed timeline yet.
The move follows a much earlier step Adobe took nearly five years ago when it brought native Arm support to Photoshop on Windows. Since then, adoption of Arm on Windows has remained sluggish, largely due to limited app compatibility and developer hesitation. However, the recent arrival of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite chips and Microsoft’s renewed push with Copilot+ PCs have re-energized the Arm ecosystem, encouraging major software vendors like Adobe to finally prioritize native support. For creatives who want the efficiency, battery life, and AI capabilities of Arm-based systems without losing access to essential professional tools, this could be a turning point.
Still, the slow pace of development raises concerns about how long it will take Adobe to deliver full-featured, stable releases on Arm. While Photoshop laid the groundwork years ago, the delay in bringing the rest of Adobe’s media suite into the Arm fold suggests that technical hurdles and lower market demand have played a role. As more developers start targeting Arm and performance continues to improve, these issues may resolve over time. Until then, early adopters should view these betas as a step in the right direction—but not yet a full replacement for traditional workflows on x86 platforms.
