At Adobe, the AI era is a test of whether a company built on iconic creative tools can remake itself fast enough to remain indispensable without losing the professionals who made those tools matter.
Anil Chakravarthy is at the center of that effort. The former Informatica CEO now leads Adobe’s customer experience business as the company faces mounting pressure to stay ahead of the disruption bearing down on products such as Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat. Such pressure has also shown up in Adobe’s stock. Despite record first-quarter fiscal 2026 revenue of $6.40 billion, its shares have fallen as investors worry that fast-moving AI agents and other new tools could weaken demand for parts of the traditional seat-based software model.
