This paper presents the current situation of the direct search for planets and future prospects in this field. The performance of the next generation of adaptive optics instruments, aiming at high angular resolution and high dynamics imaging, is briefly shown and discussed in terms of detectable planetary parameters. In summary, young jovian planets and evolved massive bodies at the border between giant planets and brown dwarfs will be directly detected within 10 years. These studies nicely complement the radial velocity and transit surveys in the search for planetary systems, whereas additionnal potential scientific cases for this class of instruments concern debris disks, star formation, massive stars ejections...