AI
Adobe Illustrator Artwork
AI is the native vector file format for Adobe Illustrator, used to store logos, illustrations, and scalable artwork. Modern AI files are built on a PDF 1.4+ structure with proprietary Illustrator metadata embedded, which is why some tools can open them as PDFs. Older versions used a PostScript-based format instead. Because the format is proprietary, full fidelity is only guaranteed in Illustrator itself; other vector editors support it with varying degrees of compatibility.
| File extensions | .ai |
| MIME type | application/postscript |
| Developer | Adobe Systems |
| First released | 1987 |
| Category | Images |
| Open standard | No (proprietary) |
What opens AI files
- Adobe Illustrator
- Affinity Designer
- CorelDRAW (partial)
- Inkscape (newer AI with PDF compatibility)
Browse File Formats
Reference details for 53 file formats — extensions, MIME types, what opens each one, and how they convert.
7Z Archives ABW Documents AI Images AVIF Images AZW3 E-books BMP Images CSS Other CSV Spreadsheets DjVu E-books DOC Documents DOCX Documents EPS Images EPUB E-books FB2 E-books GIF Images GZ Archives HEIC Images HTML Documents ICO Images ISO Archives JPG Images JSON Other Keynote Presentations Markdown Documents MOBI E-books Numbers Spreadsheets ODP Presentations ODS Spreadsheets ODT Documents OTF Other Pages Documents PDF Documents PNG Images PPT Presentations PPTX Presentations PSD Images RAR Archives RAW Images RTF Documents SVG Images TAR Archives TeX / LaTeX Documents TIFF Images TSV Spreadsheets TTF Other TXT Documents WebP Images WOFF / WOFF2 Other WPD Documents XLS Spreadsheets XLSX Spreadsheets XML Documents ZIP Archives